LiveSide - News blog : FolderShare

Windows Live Sync to be released next month

damaster — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 11:06:53 GMT

We told you that Windows Live FolderShare will be rebranded as Windows Live Sync. We also reported that Windows Live Sync will play a part in both Photo Gallery and possibly Toolbar. Today the FolderShare (or Windows Live Sync) team blog officially announced the rebranding and revealed some of the new features and improvements over the original FolderShare, here’s the announcement:

We plan to announce a product called Windows Live Sync. You can think of it as FolderShare 2.0. It's going to look familiar and offer the same great features, plus:
- More folders and files - sync up to 20 folders with 20,000 files each
- Integration with Windows Live ID - no more extra sign-in stuff to remember
- Integration with the Recycle Bin - no more separate Trash folder to fiddle with
- New client versions for both Windows and Mac
- Unicode support - sync files in other languages

Existing FolderShare users should also take note of the following:

When Sync releases, FolderShare goes into retirement. That means your FolderShare software will stop working and will ask you to upgrade to Sync. Once you do, Sync will automatically rebuild your personal folders. We expect a lot of new users when Sync is released, so if you can't sign in right away, please give it a little time.

Here's the part you need to pay attention to: Sync will not be able to rebuild your shared libraries. If you have a lot of shared libraries, you should hop over to the FolderShare website while it's still available and copy all that information. You'll need it to rebuild your shared libraries in Sync.

You should also note that the Professional option is being retired with the FolderShare name. Sync has a single offer, which provides free synchronization for up to 20 libraries and 20,000 files. We'll be working to raise those numbers as our service grows.

The Windows Experience Blog also added that Windows Live Sync is scheduled to go live in December at http://sync.live.com . We should be expecting that the “release candidate” versions of the Windows Live Essentials suite should also be coming soon too, perhaps at the same time as Windows Live Sync (after all, Sync is part of the Essentials suite).

Windows Live Photo Gallery gets new OEM partners, Sync integration, and more

damaster — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 01:59:33 GMT

Windows Live Photo Gallery from the Windows Live Essentials suite is getting some upgrades in the upcoming “Release Candidate” release too. Besides the many bug fixes (including the wlcomm.exe crash and 100% CPU usage bug), we also found out from Brian Hall’s interview that Windows Live Sync (FolderShare) will come installed along with Windows Live Photo Gallery to sync your photo albums across multiple PCs, as long as you sign in with the same Windows Live ID on more than one computer:

Perhaps more good news for Microsoft’s Windows Live push is that HP had recently signed up to include Windows Live Photo Gallery with all installs of HP’s Photosmart and Deskjet series printers. Here’s an except from their press release:

HP, the worldwide leader in printing solutions, will distribute Windows Live Photo Gallery with its consumer printers, including Photosmart and Deskjet lines, starting next year. The combined offer provides HP customers with Windows Live Photo Gallery, an end-to-end photo management and printing solution.

“Beginning in 2009, HP will feature Windows Live Photo Gallery and HP Creative Print Projects across the HP Photosmart and HP Deskjet consumer printing portfolios,” said Sam Greenblatt, general manager of Core Technologies, Imaging and Printing Group, at HP. “We are pleased to be working with Microsoft to provide an enhanced user experience for our customers. This offering will allow users to print, share, organize and edit a wide array of creative print projects at home, such as photo books, collages, cards and calendars.”

Comparing the interfaces between the current beta version with the upcoming new “RC” version, we’ve also noticed some minor enhancements that makes publishing to Windows Live Photos much easier. Notice how instead of “publish to Spaces”, you’re now able publish your photos directly to the new albums in Windows Live Groups and Events too! The new support for publishing metadata to your online albums also means that People tags will be synced across Photo Gallery and Windows Live Photos.

With a whole set of new partners signed up with Microsoft on Wednesday, we’re bound to see many more services (such as Photobucket) taking advantage of the new Publishing API to make photo sharing for us even more easier.

FolderShare to live on as Windows Live Sync?

Kip Kniskern — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 04:43:30 GMT

Apparently the shroud of secrecy that surrounds Windows Live and Wave 3 doesn’t extend to help files, as our friend Picturepan2 at LiveSino.net discovered as he was ~~snooping around~~ doing some investigative reporting. While Microsoft has maintained that FolderShare would continue on, even in the face of what seems to be redundancy with Live Mesh, those outside the company have been wondering what would become of FolderShare.

FolderShare was acquired when Microsoft bought ByteTaxi in 2005, and offers file and folder synchronization between computers with a web interface component. Folder synchronization between Windows and Mac computers is possible. However it does not offer “in the cloud” storage, or work on the FeedSync RSS underpinnings that power Live Mesh (at least in its current configuration).

Here’ a screenshot LiveSino.net posted of the help file listing:

This seems to give concrete evidence that FolderShare will continue, while being renamed as Windows Live Sync. A new version of the FolderShare beta was released on June 27 of this year, again pointing to the project as still being viable (unlike, say Windows Live Favorites, which hasn’t been heard from in quite a while and may have been superseded by Live Mesh).

New version of FolderShare for Windows available

Kip Kniskern — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 12:07:23 GMT

A new version of FolderShare for Windows (there’s a Mac client available too, but that apparently hasn’t been updated as of yet) is now available. From the FolderShare team blog:

There's a new version of FolderShare for Windows available today that includes several updates designed to improve reliability. We encourage all the awesome FolderShare users to install it at their earliest convenience.

These feature improvements work only on the new version, so the old version needs to be removed before the new one is installed. We understand this process may cause some inconvenience, but be assured that your settings and files will remain the same from start to finish.

I’m not a FolderShare user, but I gave the new install a try. The build number is reported as 14.0.1383.0530.

One note right off the bat, signing in to the FolderShare website isn’t through Windows Live ID, so there’s no correlation between your Windows Live email address and the Live ID password/FolderShare password. I’ve apparently created a FolderShare account in the past, but have no idea what password it’s under. Ahh that’s the beauty of multiple email accounts :).

Installation on one machine was quick and painless, taking less than 2 minutes. One commenter on the FolderShare blog wasn’t too happy about having to uninstall and reinstall on multiple machines, especially without a more detailed changelist than “feature improvements”, but that’s the nature of beta testing (even loooonnng term betas – FolderShare, originally a product from ByteTaxi purchased by Microsoft in late 2005, became “FolderShare Beta, a Windows Live Service” back in March, 2006).

While it is still unclear why Microsoft needs FolderShare, SkyDrive, and Live Mesh all operating as separate services (we thought Wave 3 was supposed to clean this kind of confusion up, not create more), FolderShare seems to be alive and well, and may someday even make it out of beta. Until then you can give the latest version a try (if you’re running the current bits you need to uninstall them, you will retain all your settings when you reinstall the new version).

Download FolderShare beta version 14.0.1383.0530 for Windows

Yet another Windows Live FolderShare build

Gregor — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 04:56:00 GMT

The Windows Live FolderShare team just posted that they updated their Windows client with a new build (14.0.1331.0415) improving reliability and security. This time they will make this version mandatory meaning that all users trying to log in with an older client will be prompted to updated and cannot log in until they do so - they will flip this switch later this week.

Windows Live FolderShare Beta refreshed to fix a bunch of problems

Gregor — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 14:36:00 GMT

Less then two weeks after releasing the new Windows Live FolderShare Beta the team has dropped a refreshed build (14.0.1329.0317) on to the web that fixes a bunch of problems users had been experiencing with the bits. According to their team blog this release should fix all known sign in and library management problems. It also improves the responsiveness of the tray application.

The Windows Live FolderShare beta, unlike the Windows Live Suite applications, has not yet been integrated with Microsoft Update and has no other auto update feature so you have to manually go to the Windows Live FolderShare website, download the new build and install it.

Windows Live FolderShare Gets Updated (ish)

ScottIsAFool — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 05:15:47 GMT

The Windows Live FolderShare team blog has today announced a new FolderShare. So what's new with it? Well.... Not much! In fact, I could say the update includes the following:

• A new website designed to makes managing your FolderShare libraries and computers even easier.
• A new FolderShare with a better setup, a better system tray menu, and better performance on Windows Vista.
• Improvements on the backend to keep FolderShare running more smoothly and reliably.

All of those are in the update, unfortunately, that is the update! Those three things, which seems a little light considering it's been two years since the last update.... The new website does incorporate the Wave 2 feel of the Windows Live services, and has yet not moved to foldershare.live.com, whether it does or not remains to be seen, and can still be accessed from www.foldershare.com.

Oh well, here's to the next two years...!

Foldershare admits problems - promises improvements soon

Chris — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 04:38:00 GMT

In recent weeks those using FolderShare have had much to complain about. The service has been down more than its been up, and a quick look at FolderShare newsgroup shows that for a service such as this, 99.9% uptime is the minimum that is demanded. Relief may be at hand however, as Microsoft finally starts to make progress with Windows Live FolderShare beta.

Mohammed, one of the FolderShare team members that frequents the newsgroups, has been open about where they are now:

"We’re hard at work on improvements to the service, including some great new UI enhancements you can expect to see in the coming months that we think you’re going to love.

In the meantime, however, we’ve been facing some challenges as we begin to transition the platform behind the service from the original code FolderShare ran on when we first acquired it to a more robust offering. And unfortunately many of you have been feeling some of these pains first hand.

Specifically, some recent hardware failures caused a chain of events that have caused connection issues for many over the last week or so. We are working hard to address these problems and expect things to be functioning properly again in the coming days. And longer term, you can rest assured that we are also making significant investments in our architecture and platform to fix these issues for the long term and to prepare the service for the future."

Reading between the lines suggests that a true Windows Live FolderShare beta is on the horizon, finally updating the FolderShare website and client that have been running from before the acquisition. How FolderShare eventually ties in with the other Windows Live services we'll just have to wait and see.

So why has it taken so long for Microsoft to get this far? Mohammed alluded to it in part. As FolderShare was an acquisition, it didn't arrive in a pre-packaged box that said "plug 'n' play" compatible on the side; it was service built on (L)AMP. As such it will have been rewritten to run on the Windows-powered servers that form the massive Windows Live datacenters.

There's also the fact that Windows Live services are used by a lot of people, so turning FolderShare into a scalable solution is no small feat. While the downtime in the last month may be above the threshold of acceptability, imagine the outcry if a few million people jumped on it and the service wasn't ready!

Windows Live FolderShare Beta - there is still hope

Chris — Mon, 28 May 2007 18:47:00 GMT

Looks like there is a ray of hope for those FolderShare users who've been out in the cold since Microsoft's acquisiton of ByteTaxi back at the end of the 2005. Apart from a partial rebrand to Windows Live, there hasn't been much to get exicted about, but that may be about to change.

A new FolderShare page on feedback.live.com and a public foldershare newsgroup with some activity shows that FolderShare is getting some attention internally, suggesting that it may be a questions of when, not if, there is a new beta build.

To recap:

"FolderShare is a Windows Live Service that allows people to share their files with their friends, family & co-workers, and synchronize files across multiple devices. People can also access their files from anywhere on the web."

So how does this compare to Microsoft's other known storage products?
- Windows Live FolderShare provides remote access to files via a web browser and also synching capabilities similar to that of Messenger's Shared Folders.
- Windows Live Folders is a cloud storage service, allowing you to store your files at a Microsoft datacenter thereby providing access to your files even if your home PC is turned off.
- Windows Home Server provides remote access to files via a web browser and mapped drive access if you are on the same network

You can try out FolderShare at www.foldershare.com.