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Comment by dsp1234 | Hacker News Reader

Windows' enterprise infrastructure relies heavily on CIFS.

I'm pretty sure the number of enterprises deploying CIFS is basically 0. It was last used for NT 4.0, and was superseded by SMB1 in windows 2000, SMB2 in Windows 2008, and SMB3 in Windows 2012[0].

[0] - https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/josebda/2013/10/02/windo...

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If I had used "SMB" instead of "CIFS" someone would have criticised that too. Cannot win. There's a pedant around every corner waiting to pounce on inane detail.

If you have a point to make that actually contributes to the conversation I'd happily answer that. I won't address, beyond here, these petty corrections.

criticised that too.

There is no criticism in my statement that CIFS is not likely deployed in any enterprise. Indeed, I had hoped that it would be an interesting fact for anyone not intimately familiar with SMB's history.

Cannot win.

Seems like you can't lose with an argument that is "Windows AD requires SMB", which is almost tautologically true. I (obviously) agree with that since it's clearly true. So since there is no reasonable "conversation" to be had about that, then what is the harm in providing some CIFS/SMB history since we're talking about it.

Be correct or go home.

potato potatoe, ssl tls, cifs smb... old names tend to stick around.

True enough. It seems weird since SMB has been in continuous use from about 1990-1992 until today (24-26 years), but CIFS was only in use from about 1996 to 2000, so about 4 years of CIFS and 22 years of SMB, or about 15% of SMB's lifetime. Whereas SSL was in use from 1995 to 2014/2015, almost a full 20 years, and about 95% of SSL/TLS's lifetime. So it's obvious why SSL is still used during the transition, but less so why CIFS, which was just small blip in SMB's history, is used.

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