Microsoft has killed the next-generation WinFS file system that was initially scheduled to become part of Windows Vista.

Pieces of the technology will instead be integrated into the SQL Server database, ActiveX Data Objects and other Microsoft products.

Quentin Clark, director of program management at Microsoft, explained on a Microsoft blog that the company wants to make WinFS more general purpose. 

"These changes mean that we are not pursuing a separate delivery of WinFS, including the previously planned Beta 2 release," he wrote.

Microsoft has been hyping the WinFS technology since 2003. A beta was released in August.

Instead of looking for files, WinFS was meant to identify relationships between items such as images, documents, email messages and calendar appointments, allowing the user to search for objects dispersed over several applications.

When it was first pulled as a feature for Windows Vista, Microsoft promised that the technology would be made available as an update at a later stage.

Clark suggested in his blog posting that pieces of the technology might still find their way into future operating systems, but did not provide any details.