Metadata is basically a form of description about an item. Some metadata are not easily seen by an everyday user. But they are actually there. For instance, Vista metadata is there to assist its users in finding items when making searches. Music files would have metadata that describe the music item. The composer and the singer could be written there. It would even contain the release date of the song. Spreadsheets and document files also contain metadata. The author of the said file and the time of its creation are found in the metadata as well.

At times, metadata are automatically written upon the creation of a file or other types of resources. Other times, it’s also created, edited and even deleted by the authors or the creators of the items. Some metadata can easily be viewed and edited through the properties of the file. Some fields cannot be changed though.

Since Vista uses metadata to make the searches, it is indeed very useful to computer use. However, there are also some data that users don’t want to pass on to other people. Some labels or tags can be attached to customers for business management purposes. Legal firms could also do the same on their client files.

In these instances, metadata could be detrimental when revealed to other people. Confidentiality should be guarded as much as possible in these scenarios. Removal of some details can easily be done through the item properties. The file can even be created without the metadata. It is quite possible to remove metadata by batches too.