Microsoft has spent years trying to move its user base ever slowly away from the fixed drive letter scheme that it instituted with the first version of MS-DOS over 20 years ago. Windows 95 gave us long file names, for example, freeing us from the 8.3 file name limitation. Windows 2000 introduced the Distributed File System (DFS), which allows physically separate disk drives and partitions to be linked together as a contiguous storage space that is accessed as a simple folder or share. And now, in Windows Vista Beta 1 (see my review), we see the most important file system advance yet, given the limitations of our drive letter-based file system. It's called virtual folders. And it will forever change the way in which you use your computer.

Before we get started, I should mention that Apple's latest operating system, Mac OS X 10.4 ("Tiger," see my review) offers very similar functionality. However, Microsoft announced and demonstration Windows Vista's virtual folders functionality a year before Apple revealed that it was working on that feature, so let's not making any copying accusations just yet. Suffice to say that this kind of functionality is incredibly useful for real people, and thus is an obvious candidate for inclusion in any modern operating system. That Apple arrived at a set of functionality that closely mimics what Microsoft had previously demonstrated is not surprising or outrageous.