Live Mesh WHS Integration. Will it ever happen?

According to this blog post from over a year ago the WHS team and the Live Mesh team have been working together to get Mesh working in WHS. From the looks of it they even had an add-in developed at that time already.

I'm not as enamoured with Mesh as I was when it was first announced, but it still seems like the best way to get your stuff synced between your PC's and your WHS shares. Live Sync is apparently a heap of trouble to get working on WHS, and I'm not to keen on installing various hacks on the thing that is supposed to keep my files safe. Synctoy is nice, but it doesn't sync your stuff outside your LAN and it needs to be scheduled to run once or twice a day, or needs to be run manually, which is annoying. So Mesh seems like the best choice so far.

Of course, nothing but complete silence on the subject has eminated from either team since PDC2008. Is this ever going to happen or have both Mesh and WHS development ground to a halt entirely? Maybe dahat is into doing a video about what's going on over there?

CKurt said:

Here is my take.

 

They viewed the whole Live Mesh succes from the top and looked at how to bring it to the masses and they will do it via Windows Live Wave for.

 

As you may know the Mesh Client runs a Mesh Operating Enviroment (MOE) on the client that takes care of syncing, detection, foldersharing. And the MOE can me 'asked question' by programm to get data from the persons Mesh (Folders, Documents , Devices,Conact,...)

This hase been reworked to be know as the 'Live Framework' (as reported at PDC08) and the Live Framework is one unifided way to get to the users Live Folders , Documents , Photo's, Contacts,... It works the same way as Mesh (REST, ATOM , RSS, XML based dataflow). This live framework (a CTP) was running the Live Operating Enviroment (LOE) on each client who had it installed.

 

So Wave 4 will install the LOE and use it to sync all it's data. The cloud or 'Live Desktop' in mesh wil become Skydrive...

 

So the plugin voor WHS will probably need a small rewrite to work with the LOE instead op MOE and it will need a rewrite to work with skydrive to sync data.

 

But again, that it my take on the while (very very quite thing)

That's a pretty good take

CKurt said:

PaoloM said:

*snip*

Thx! But it's a shame it took this long to release...

And is still taking long.. I don't see a release date for Wave 4 yet, and even when that's out we'll still have to see when (and if) the WHS team will actually release the addin.

Given the long time between (reported) betas of WHS power packs and the actual release, and the lack of any news about a syncing add-in beta, suggests to me that we won't be seeing this stuff in 2010.

Live Mesh integration with printers looked neat.

http://www.liveside.net/main/archive/2008/11/07/live-mesh-to-support-devices-and-peripherals-hints-at-frameit-integration.aspx

If those things actually happend, how sweet would that be? Concepts seem to rarely come true. So many cool demos, so little actual product

I can't wait for Live Wave 4, perhaps soon is soon? Soon to RTM or soon to beta?

CKurt said:

Bas said:

*snip*

Development for Wave 4 will be talked about at MIX and you can not develop for a platform that not has been released. Twitter seems to indicate a launch of Wave 4 is very very near. This means a LOE running on you machine.

 

The addin for WHS might be even released very rapid after this because your server might juste be able to be added to your Live Devices (http://devices.live.com) A bit like devices in your mesh device ring, So then syncing will work immidiatly (probably also DELTA sync will be added to LOE in this new release)

Both teams are Microsoft, of course they can release for their own unreleased platforms. Besides, they're already betatesting the platform, so they could be developing using the beta.

The addin for WHS might be even released very rapid after this because your server might juste be able to be added to your Live Devices (http://devices.live.com) A bit like devices in your mesh device ring

This wasn't the case for the Mesh device ring or for the Live Sync devices thing, so I have little reason to believe it'll be possible for the Live Framework right out of the box.

Still hope you're right, though.

If those things actually happend, how sweet would that be? Concepts seem to rarely come true. So many cool demos, so little actual product

This is my main beef here. How long did it take until the calendar in Live Mail synced both ways with your calendar.live.com? The goodness always seems to come in tiny trickles every 10 months or so. I could easily see them go "Yeah, we now have Live Framework for syncing, but WHS will be supported in Wave 5."

so expect Live Mesh coming soon to your printers, digital cameras, and digital photo frames!

Posted November 2008...

Microsoft needs a more aggressive release schedule. They need to clean up their Live Brand a bit more too. If they want to succeed, continue to succeed, or grow, things need to get better.

They are not hopeless, the products are great now, but the experience in collaboration and sharing on Windows is very hard. OS X comes with exchange support in their mail app, will Windows Live Mail ever get that? Who knows. I am at a Live @ Edu school, which uses Exchange. The problem is, we have an Exchange Calendar and a Windows Live Calendar. Imagine how confusing that gets for people who just want to share their calendar. The solution is many just use Google Calendar and use the share link.

There are fundamental problems that need to be worked on. Sure once someone learns the system and some tricks, the system sorta works now, but it is far from being where it needs to be. 

There are even complicated convoluted guides online at other Live @ Edu schools to get around some issues.

http://knol.google.com/k/gmail-and-google-calendar-sync-with-ms-exchange-and-outlook-web-access#

While digging around in the 2008 Live Framework CTP I found evidence of a new WHS device type, in addition to the typical PC, Mac, and mobile device types.  Who knows if that's still in the plans though.

In regards to calendars, I found evidence in the 2009 "non-CTP" from a couple months ago that they are adding calendar and photo sync support.

Like CKurt says, we should expect more information in the MIX time frame (in about 2 months).

Interesting theories everyone. I hope MS integrates Mesh with Wave 4. It really is a great product.

I was just thinking the same thing... this would be a very useful feature but needs the ability to support multiple live ID's.  I have a feeling this is a WHS Vail application since it has taken so long.  I hope there will be a solution soon. 

Based on a few searches I came up with this  http://www.neowin.net/news/windows-live-wave-4-roadmap-leaked

• 28 April - the selected testers "get access to latest builds"
• 18 May - Windows Live 2010 M3 RTW (release to web)
• 3 June - "complete public disclosure" (and compile date for the public beta, according to MuyWindows)
• 7 June - "public beta" released
• 7 June - Messenger for iPhone released in "main languages"
• 25 August - "additional languages" for Messenger and iPhone, and public RTW of the final version

so I guess we are close... public beta in june may give us something??

what is another year. 

Chris