Overall Rating

Windows Live SkyDrive is part of Microsoft’s Windows Live family of Web 2.0-style online offerings. You must already have a Microsoft username and password before they can access a Live Shared folder. No problem if you use Hotmail or Windows Messenger, or otherwise have an MSN or Windows Live ID, but an inconvenience you don’t. Microsoft states that a forthcoming release of the service will support sharing folders with those who lack a Microsoft account.You can effortlessly store any type of file to a Private, Public, or Shared folder. No one aside from you, with your username and password, can access Private folders. Anybody on the Internet can examine your Public folders (careful), but only folks you invite can see your Shared folders. You can control invitees’ access to particular Shared folders or award them Contributor status for viewing, adding, modifying, and deleting items in a shared folder.

Microsoft’s SkyDrive and Mesh are part of its Windows Live offerings, which include services like Hotmail, instant messaging, social networking and photo sharing. If you have a Hotmail, Windows Messenger or XBox Live user ID, you can get up to 25 GB of gratis online data storage space on SkyDrive and 5 GB on the beta version of Mesh. SkyDrive is entirely web-based, but you’ll need to install a client to deploy Mesh. Both offer online file sharing and internet access to documents while roaming, so there are no fancy remote backup scheduling options as in Mozy and Carbonite and no file editing platform as in services like Box.Net. Mesh also allows syncing between multiple computers, including Macs. I guess to rephrase, changes to a document on one computer that runs the Live Mesh software will show up on all systems that have Live Mesh installed. Although using SkyDrive was straightforward, reviewers were frustrated with the unintuitive interface of Mesh. Overall, neither is really appropriate for routine backups.

We found Windows Live SkyDrive significantly easier to use than other competing services such as XDrive and SugarSync, but the service does lack some functionality that its competitors offer. For Instance, XDrive enables you to stream stored audio files and SugarSync performs automated online data backups and enables you synchronize data between multiple computers.

Windows Live SkyDrive shows premature signs of being a great component of Microsoft’s vast collection of online services. All the same, we’d like to see additional features, such as the capability to save Hotmail e-mail attachments to SkyDrive folders or to create a slide show of images stored in Public folders. We’d also be thankful for better service integration, along the lines of Google’s Gmail and Docs & Spreadsheets. It look like Microsoft is beating Google to the punch with this online backup and storage offering even though it still needs considerable work. Customer support is only provided though email.

How Windows Live Sky Drive Works Videos: