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Use Office 2010 to map a local drive letter to your free 25GB Live SkyDrive
Heck, if you tell an app like 7zip to chunk big files up into 50MB pieces you can store whatever the heck you want. If only there was a way to access your SkyDrive storage like a local hard drive without an app like Gladinet or SD Explorer...Why, that'd make it like a free Dropbox account x 12.5!
As it turns out, there is a way to do that -- and it's pretty darn easy to do now that Office 2010 is here.
Here's what you'll need to to turn your SkyDrive into your Z: drive (or whatever letter you choose):
- Office 2010 -- a trial version or unexpired beta is fine
- a Windows Live account
- ...the ability to follow directions
Fire up Powerpoint and create a new blank presentation (file -> new). Next, head back to the file menu and click save & send then choose save to web from the submenu.
Choose to save to SkyDrive. After logging in, you'll be able to choose a save location. Click it, then note the location which appears in the save window's address bar:
It's all downhill from here. Click at the end of the line (after Documents, for example) to highlight the path. Copy it to the clipboard.
Now right-click Computer on your start menu and choose map network drive. Select a drive letter, paste in the path, and choose to reconnect the drive. For reconnection to work, you need to have the Windows 7 online ID provider for Windows Live installed and your ID linked to your Windows login.
Now right-click Computer on your start menu and choose map network drive. Select a drive letter, paste in the path, and choose to reconnect the drive. For reconnection to work, you need to have the Windows 7 online ID provider for Windows Live installed and your ID linked to your Windows login.
Now just click OK, and you're done! If everything went well, a new Explorer window (like the one at the top of this article) will appear with the contents of the folder you mapped. You'll have to repeat the process if you want access to multiple folders -- just save & send again and pick a different location!
Drag and drop files to SkyDrive...sync from your desktop to the cloud with SyncToy, you name it! Hopefully your upload speeds are a little better than mine, because 30KB/s just doesn't cut it.
Drag and drop files to SkyDrive...sync from your desktop to the cloud with SyncToy, you name it! Hopefully your upload speeds are a little better than mine, because 30KB/s just doesn't cut it.
Comments
29
Subscribe to commentsTim BrayApr 27th 2010 6:50AM
Interesting. I've been using SMEStorage to do this to date (Gladinet never worked for me consistently). I get a virtual drive and sync tools so I've had a DropBox like capability for a while and I'm pretty happy with it. I'm on XP but I'm looking forward to checking this out when I finally muster the effort to move to Windows 7.
I'm presuming it does not work on XP unless someone posts otherwise.
Deathtrap3000Apr 28th 2010 2:12PM
It works on XP. You just have to use folders instead of mapping a network drive.
hugolrdApr 28th 2010 2:28PM
what do you mean by use folders?
ChrisX81Apr 30th 2010 7:55AM
Hi!
I tried both methods (Office 2010 and mvp's) and both work, until the next log in. I have installed the online id provider and linked my id with my user account, but it doesn't work. Any idea?
SourceCodeMay 1st 2010 1:20PM
OK, works fine on Win 7, but slow upload/download speeds make its usefulness limited. Anyone else notice that if you hover the mouse pointer over the mapped drive in Explorer, it shows a size of 230GB. huh?!? how does a 25GB SkyDrive suddenly become 230GB in size? go figure.
Conor DuffyMay 2nd 2010 9:12AM
I just tried this, and it keeps failed, saying that it can't access the URL. Copying and pasting the address into my browser just results in a white page. Are there any settings in SkyDrive that might be preventing this?
Conor DuffyMay 2nd 2010 12:14PM
@All - I found the problem. It seems I disabled the WebClient service while trawling through BlackViper server configurations, and apparently it is needed for this to work
rob2b2003ukJun 8th 2010 1:45PM
Well I did it, but any files other than office documents I try to drag n drop into it, I get told its 2big, but if it is an .xls etc it lets me upload........ zips and mp3s wont go on there
athJun 12th 2010 4:13AM
same deal with me. everything works, however it depends on what you mean by 'work'. I can only upload office files, and text docs, otherwise it says the files are too big (even if they're not). E.g. really small pics dont work either. So it seems its just a big document storing service now...