Editing WinFS (section)

==Data sharing==
WinFS allows easy sharing of data between applications, and among multiple WinFS stores, which may reside on different computers, by copying to and from them.<ref name="Sync">{{cite web | url = http://blogs.msdn.com/winfs/archive/2005/11/17/494222.aspx | title = Getting Data Into WinFS with WinFS Synchronization | author = Neil Padgett | publisher = WinFS Team Blog | access-date = 2007-06-30 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20070217152210/http://blogs.msdn.com/winfs/archive/2005/11/17/494222.aspx | archive-date = 2007-02-17 | url-status = dead }}</ref> A WinFS item can also be copied to a non-WinFS file system, but unless that data item is put back into the WinFS store, it will not support the advanced services provided by WinFS.

The WinFS API also provides some support for sharing with non-WinFS applications. WinFS exposes a shell object to access WinFS stores. This object maps WinFS items to a virtual folder hierarchy, and can be accessed by any application.<ref name="PaulT" /> Virtual folders can automatically share new content referenced by the query with users (a virtual folder for "''all vacation photos''" can automatically share new items returned by this query with users). WinFS data can also be manually shared using [[network share]]s, by sharing the legacy shell object.<ref name="Sync" /> Non-WinFS file formats can be stored in WinFS stores, using the File Item, provided by WinFS. Importers can be written, to convert specific file formats to WinFS Item types.<ref name="Sync" />

In addition, WinFS provides services to automatically synchronize items in two or more WinFS stores, subject to some predefined condition, such as "''share only photos''" or "''share photos that have an associated contact X''".<ref name="Sync" /> The stores may be on different computers. Synchronization is done in a [[peer-to-peer]] fashion; there is no central authority. A synchronization can be either manual or automatic or scheduled. During synchronization, WinFS finds the new and modified Items, and updates accordingly. If two or more changes conflict, WinFS can either resort to automatic resolution based on predefined rules, or defer the synchronization for manual resolution. WinFS also updates the schemas, if required.<ref name="Sync" />