Custom File Properties aren't new in Vista - they date back to the Windows 95 Shell API. The only thing Vista added was the ability to filter and group directly

Custom File Properties aren't new in Vista - they date back to the Windows 95 Shell API. The only thing Vista added was the ability to filter and group directly from the list-view column headers (in Windows XP you could group-by, but with limited options, and no in-place filtering).