NICE: Microsoft's Live Mesh syncs files between all your PCs over the net

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James Bannan22 July 2008, 5:00 PM

Microsoft's foray into cloud computing, centralised online storage and remote system access is now open to the hordes of the great unwashed. A public beta, in other words.

Back in April, Microsoft unveiled the tech preview of its new cloud storage solution – Live Mesh.

For those of you who haven’t seen Live Mesh, it’s essentially a client-server storage solution where files stored in a local file cache are synchronised with file caches on other attached Mesh clients. It’s a very similar concept to Novell’s iFolder or Microsoft Office Groove – files are stored on at a central location, clients connect back to that central point and all files are kept in sync between all connected systems

Live Mesh takes that idea and runs much further with it. The central cloud storage component of Live Mesh is fully accessible from any web browser. From this central location (which currently offers 5GB of space) you can access Live Desktop – the online copies of any files and folders you’re using. You can also add devices – at the moment just Windows-based systems but Mac and mobile devices will soon be accessible also. You can then connect to any connected, online device using Live Mesh Remote Desktop.

You can also collaborate with other Live Mesh users – simply create a new folder and add users by their Live email address.

Since April Live Mesh has been a private beta – invitation only. It was also supposed to be only accessible to US users, but we had no problems applying for admission to the beta program and using the system without any restrictions.

Microsoft has now opened the program up for general public admission, along with a few updates to the software. The irritating bug where the client software depended on Vista User Account Control (UAC) being enabled is no more. This is quite a positive step forward because for me, Live Mesh’s reliance on UAC was why I stopped using it after just a few days. But now we’re friends again.

The official word is that Live Mesh is open to anyone in the US. International users can also sign up, but there’s a strange caveat:

“With Live Mesh open to anyone in the US, our international friends can join in the fun early as well—with one caveat: you must be willing to change your Windows operating system region and language setting to EN-US. Once you do this you will be able to immediately sign in to Live Mesh with a valid Windows Live ID. Please be aware that this may cause other applications that specifically require your native country region and language settings to encounter problems.”

This is a strange one, especially as it isn’t true. I’m running Live Mesh on two Vista machines and they both have all region and language settings set to Australia, with no problems whatsoever. Of course, one of the reasons why US customers might have a better experience than we poor schmucks is that they actually have this thing called broadband internet which, like, apparently goes roooolly quick and means that online collaboration and storage system just, sort of, work yeah? Noice.

Apparently there is a limited amount of space in the public beta, but it seems that places are still available, so head on over to the Live Mesh website and sign up.

Reader Comments

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agami (Regular user):

Yawn. It's all 90's technology with some perdy icons. These companies have enough grey matter and enough of the green stuff to make fundamental changes people could actually get excited over.

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Tin (Senior member):

Have to agree. It's been done before, and barely anyone used it. All MS have done is make it look pretty with some Vista style icons.

This will just turn into yet another place pirated and legally-questionable material is stored and distributed.

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foaf (New user):

Live Mesh is the best thing out of MS since WHS. Synching files with my work PC, and being able to remote access it is brilliant. Granted its been done before, but this is the simplest implementation of it, and it's just going to get better.

And don't forget http://m.mesh.com for mobile access to your files.

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Tin (Senior member):

Quoting foaf:
but this is the simplest implementation of it, and it's just going to get better.

Better generally means an improvement in quality, usability and design... MS don't generally do that. Ever.
And if they're making it anything like Vista, look forward to loss of functionality, broken standards and plenty of narrow-minded assumptions (like Vista's assumption that you'll only ever use one network connection).

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dwr50 (User):

OK... once all the dupes er users work all the bugs out for MS$ I guess it be ready to rent.

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gankul (User):

Well, i would agree except for the fact that every company beta tests their software with users, so either every beta customer is a dupe, or your just been spiteful to anyone who even looks at microsoft products.

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Tin (Senior member):

MS release betas as a pre-release demo version... They don't do it for testing.
Want proof? Try finding a bug in an MS beta and reporting it. Chances are, unless it's a massive security flaw, they still won't have fixed it 2 years later. I know one of the bugs I submitted during Vista B2 still exists.

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Raindog (Senior member):

Only Windows based system with support for other soon. Haven't we heard all that before.

Given I can achieve all this and lots more already and have done for some time I guess it's just another case of of Microsoft appearing to solve a problem that didn't exist.

I see comment of Microsoft offering the simplest implementation. Does Simple implementation entail a stream of annoying and inflexible wizard screen tailored to the "chronically bewildered" and an endless stream of pop-ups saving people from themselves. In short Simplistic implementation not required.

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