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Windows used to have an almost unknown "transactional file system API" that sounds similar to what you're asking for. I think it was recently deprecated, but I don't know why, or what the history of this API is. Might be interesting to read up on it!

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Transactional NTFS:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/fileio/about-...

You are probably thinking of WinFS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WinFS

> In 2013 Bill Gates cited WinFS as his greatest disappointment at Microsoft and that the idea of WinFS was ahead of its time, which will re-emerge

Nope, I was thinking of transactional NTFS, which AFAIK is still supported, but deprecated.

I'd totally forgotten about WinFS - I remember it being touted years back, and it sounded great... and then it got cut before the next version of Windows was released. I was pretty disappointed, as at the time it really sounded like the future of file systems. Maybe just ahead of it's time.

Yes, deprecated. I thought it had already been dropped but apparently not yet. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/fileio/about-...

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