An Introduction to Windows Live Sync and How to Migrate from Live Mesh

Are we ever going to get an API for this?

Will the transition from Live Sync Beta to RTM require uninstall and reinstall?  With multiple machines and distinct settings on tens (if not 100) folders, the mere process of getting all folders properly configured takes a long time.  I'll take the hit one time, but not twice.

Generally, I'm very pleased with Live Essentials.  The decision to go with split cloud storage areas obviously adds complexity.  I find the term "synced folders" confusing...and quickly assumed that was part of SkyDrive.  A couple of suggestions for this Beta...

1. In Devices, get rid of the menu "View Synced Folders" and rename the "SkyDrive synced storage" device to "SyncDrive".  Also change SkyDrive references in Live Sync client to SyncDrive.

2. In SkyDrive, get rid of the menu "View Synced Folders".

3. Add SyncDrive to the Windows Live logo/menu.

4. Either enhance Office Web Apps to allow "view only" of Office documents stored in SyncDrive OR let users copy file(s) between SyncDrive and SkyDrive.

..other suggestion

5. You've got to get a developer story around application settings syncing...it could be extremely useful.  Also, its not clear to me but it seems limited to peer-to-peer mode.   I really think it should include a "hidden" SyncDrive device folder.  Ideally, I'd like to see a Sync XML file spec that lets developer reference registry and file based resources.

I'm not sure what the deficiency with the laptop video is ... but the laptop screen was readable (not fuzzy) when on the wall behind versus when shown as the main feed in the video.  Go to 3 minutes and 20 seconds and view how much clearer the laptop screen is in the background.

Live Mesh fan -- could be for Sync, too, but I don't get why Sync can't share the 25GB provided by SkyDrive for cloud storage. There can't be a technical reason for this, so what is the reason?

I was really excited about Sync and just finished installing it only to find that I can't select the sync location for remote computers! This seems like a required basic feature for syncing two folders and a huge deal breaker for me. Can you even call what Live Sync does.... synchronization? Copying a folder from one computer into the personal directory of the others doesn't sound like synchronization. More like backing up. Perhaps I'm not understanding something here...

Lets say I have a laptop and a desktop. On both computers I create a Data partition (D:\). Both computers have a D:\Work folder. Please correct me if I'm wrong but using the new sync, I can't synchronize these two folders. As soon as I set up sync on, say, the laptop. It will start putting the Work folder on the desktop under the personal directory. If I make changes to a file in D:\Work on the desktop, it won't get synced to the laptop.

Is there an official feedback channel where I can voice this concern?

I think Live Sync is a downgrade from Live Mesh:

1. From 5 Gb to 2 Gb storage space, instead of increasing to 25 Gb like all sites has done lately.
2. No feed of changes, neither local, like the mini pop-up that appeared when hovering Mesh systray icon, nor online like mesh.com has.
3. No option to share files/folder with read-only permission, only you can switch between allow or not allow to change permissions.
4. No easy access from Wave 4 home to devices (upper links that are displayed in all the wave 4 products, ex. hotmail, home, profile, calendar, etc.).
5. No Windows' context menu support when right clicking a folder and file.
6. No way to invite people to share a folder locally
7. No Windows Live Messenger integration, you can't for example share a file/folder within a conversation.
8. Error on signing in advice you to restart the pc instead of show you a window to correct the error, I solved this by trying to signing in with Windows Live Messenger and then correcting the "saved" password that everytime I use CCleaner is changed...

Come on guys, what's going on here? 2 years waiting for an upgrade from Mesh and you gave us this? I am a Windows Live fan boy but I can't live with this... Mesh is one of my most used features... and now I can't use it as I used to because of the small amount of storage!

Hi,

I have a use case that probably is not possible or involves tons of command parameters.. It would be nice to get this solved somehow

There are 4 computers in my dorm, another 4 at my parents home. At my side there is a desktop (1,5TB disk capacity), 1 tablet to work with (400GB), 1 tablet to present (120GB), 1 Windows Home Server (3TB). Over at the house of my parents there are about additonal 3TB of disk space splitted across the machines.

Now I'd like to do the following:

Go through all files/subdirs in certain folders (My documents, My Pictures, ...)

If a file is less than 3 months old it should be synchronized between the computers.

+ If it is a docx or pptx it should be uploaded to SyncDrive.

+ If it gets updated on two computers at the same time w/o sync I want to merge them if possible

If a file is older then 3 months it should be moved to my Windows Home Server (running Vail)

+ If a file on WHS gets edited it should be resynced to all computers for 3 months

Any possibility to get this done?

Another use case (that you probably won't do..) I'd like to have all files within version control (like Tortoise SVN) on my WHS.

Andreas

Microsoft Student Partner

RFC1: Get rid of the sys tray icon

RFC2: Integrate command to sync a folder into Windows Explorer (add a menu titled "Sync" > "Sync to a device", > "show status")

RFC3: Integrate Sync into Windows Sync Center (control panel)

RFC4: Add a link to Sync interface to Network and Sharing Center

RFC5: Add computers that are synced into the network map of the Network and Sharing Center

RFC6: Add Sync warnings into Windows Action Center

feature request: Propagate warnings to Windows Home Server Connector

feature request: Add XBox syncing

feature request: give credit where credit is due.. Your "About Windows Live Sync Beta" window isn't telling very much

Can I uninstall mesh, install Live Sync. Test it and then uninstall Live Sync and reinstall mesh without loosing any data?

All-

Appreciate the comments and feedback. The official channel for feedback is here:

https://feedback.live.com/default.aspx?productkey=wlsync

Also – please report bugs here:

http://windowslivehelp.com/

@Rbear -  We really appreciate the interest in a developer offer – both for folder sync and settings sync. In this release of Windows Live, we prioritized our Messenger Connect APIs but will consider extensibility for Sync in the future.

@KDawg  - Going from Beta to RTM should be a smooth process – with settings preserved. Also – we’ve integrated with Microsoft Update so you should get auto prompted.

 @Ckurt / @USArcher  - SkyDrive has 2GB of Sync storage and 25GB of web storage for Office / photos. We hear you on the confusion and desire to see these things work more seamlessly together. This is something we will look at in future releases. Feedback during the beta period (and afterwards) will help us prioritize – so please keep it coming.  

@andreasbalzer - Thanks for the suggestions! Please use the feedback link above. Shell / context menu integration  is something we will consider in a future release.

A few folks had questions on app settings. First, Sync uses cloud storage to sync app settings – so both devices don’t need to be on at the same time for the sync to happen. (Note that there is no way to access settings stored in the cloud.) As for app support., we focused initially on two of the most common (IE and Office) while we consider how to bring this capability to more apps in the future.

Will reply to others shortly...

thanks-

Anand Babu

SkyDrive / Sync product management

you know.. "not many people use 5gb" is such a bad excuse... if that was the case, there would be even more reason to keep the 5gb limit (or even more logically, the 25gb limit of skydrive)!

how many online storage site actually keep the storage on hand for what the garantee users? none...

if you want to limit storage, thats fine, but atleast be honest about it and why you're doing it. we're devs, you cant bs the bs:ers

conflict resolution seems a little better than mesh, but i still miss a simple list of all the conflicts.. but atleast you can apply an action to all the items now.

also, the ability to set sync settings on subfolders on a shared folder is really needed imo, having to change my whole file structure just for sync is uncool

i also really miss the activity window from folder share.. the new sync window doesnt tell you very much

it would also be interesting to hear why the messanger connect api, something that i for one never herd of and doesnt think sounds very compelling, was prioritized over a folder / settings sync api that has been promised since pdc 2008 (with mesh) and has been asked about multiple times in this thread as well as before..

oh well.. new messenger is pretty slick and photogallery is cool stuff

Sync should be able to do what you want. Try the steps below - but first stop syncing the folder you're working with. (You can do this from devices.live.com)

1. Create the sync folder on one computer by clicking 'Sync a folder' in the Sync client
2. In the Select Devices dialog, click OK without selecting any other computer. This will create the folder but not start syncing it yet. This is important since if you select another computer, Sync will automatically sync the folder to your personal directory on the other computer - which is what's happening now.
3. Go to each of your other computers and open the Sync client. You will see the folder you created. Choose “Sync this folder” and select the local directory you wish to use (i.e. D:\Work)

This should work - although its not a scenario we have tested. Also - uninstalling Mesh on your PC should not delete any data you have stored in Mesh online storage

Lots of unhappy people: http://windowsteamblog.com/windows_live/b/windowslive/archive/2010/06/10/coming-soon-windows-live-sync-beta.aspx

I hope Microsoft can offer some insight soon.

Thanks Anand! The steps you described work perfectly! I am now using sync to keep the data partitions on all 3 of my computers synchronized.

Perhaps it would be helpful to add a note somewhere in the UI that you need to initiate the sync from each remote computer if you want to choose a local folder.

Migrating to Live Sync is not nearly as complicated as they made it sound.

I blogged about the process, these steps will get you through it.

http://scott.jaworski-group.com/2010/06/migrating-from-live-mesh-to-live-sync_30.html

What about this vision?

http://channel9.msdn.com/posts/Dan/Ori-Amiga-Programming-the-Mesh/

Mesh enabled applications - that would have been so cool. I'm waiting now since 2 years, I'm not waiting any longer and have registered for Dropbox, they have an API. But what made Mesh different was, that I could store any object, any class into a Mesh object and it will be synced to all devices. It was not only file based syncing, I could sync all kind of business data. Now this is gone  Why????

<redacting>, read a later post that addressed my concern.

Thanks.

On Live Mesh I was able to see synced folders better because the shared folders were blue in color. With WIndows Live mesh this is gone.
Also when Live mesh was working to sync the files/folders you can see an animated icon. It helps to know when syncing is going on. But this also has been removed with Windows Live mesh.
I was so happy with Live mesh but not anymore. Windows Live has reduced the functionality of the previous version.

I agree with Wisam. The new Live Mesh really is a downgrade of the functionality of the old Live Mesh. 
1) Blue folders within Windows Explorer let you know which folders you were syncing. That is gone.
2) You could easily sync and/or share any folder with a right-click. That is gone. 
3)  You also had news feeds for each folder you were syncing. This was great to get a glance of what was happening in the folder with those whom you share the folder. That is gone.
4) There was also the blue icon in the systray. This provided quick access to your synced folders, your devices, and your news across all your folders. It also showed you if you were currently syncing up or down from the cloud. That is gone.
Basically all of the great intuitiveness if Live Mesh is gone, and we are going back in time to a crappy user interface that makes it difficult to use. Let alone the fact that installing Live Essentials just flat out removes all your syncing and you have to set up everything again, and then also share everything again with your peers. 
Microsoft really didn't think this one through. So Dropbox it is.