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What are 'Windows Vista' Virtual Folders
One feature coming to Windows Vista is Virtual Folders, but what are they exactly?Virtual Folders enable you to see your files in a way that's independent of the physical hierarchy. These new kind of folders use file properties (metadata) such as author, keyword, and project name to automatically generate and update different views of your files on the fly.
For example, Longhorn ships with an Authors Virtual Folder that quickly looks at the author property of every file on your PC, and then displays those files within the Authors Virtual Folder in neat "Stacks" by author. Regardless of where your documents are stored physically, Longhorn examines the author property (and other properties) of all of the files and organizes them for you accordingly. Because Virtual Folders are based on properties not location, you can view all of your files organized by project, by client, or in lots of other ways just by clicking another Virtual Folder. It's fast, flexible, automatic, and easy.
Virtual Folders are dynamic and always up to date. When you copy new files to your computer, Longhorn examines all the properties of the new files. It then intelligently connects each file to the appropriate Virtual Folders, based on those properties. You no longer need to store files in a specific location on your PC (although, of course, you can if you want).
Although Longhorn automatically adds each file to the Virtual Folders it belongs to, you can also manually change a file or a group of files' properties in order to see those files in other Virtual Folders. Changing these properties is as simple as dragging a file onto another Virtual Folder. Doing so adds a new property to that file, making it quick and painless to personalize how your files are organized. For example, if you have a group of Excel spreadsheets, image files, and Word documents that are all relevant to a particular project, you can drag the files onto a Virtual Folder that you created for that project — thereby adding a new property for that particular project to the files. Likewise, adding another author to an existing file is just a matter of dragging the file onto that author's Virtual Folder.