Sync center vs windows live mesh

I found a pretty short and useful article about this three tools, that sometimes they overlaps and it is not clear which to use when. Live Mesh vs. SkyDrive: Which is Right for You? Written by Amit Agarwal on December 20, Text Size The new Windows Live suite includes three different services for file storage and online synchronization. You can manually upload documents, pictures and other files to Windows Live servers via the browser and your uploads will remain accessible from any other computer or web-enabled mobile phone.

Each file or folder on SkyDrive has a unique Web address URL , so you can easily paste that link into email messages or other documents for direct access. You can synchronize up to 20 folders containing up to 20, files each. Individual files cannot be larger than 4 GB in size. If you want to install just SkyDrive, open the SkyDrive desktop app for Windows page and click on the Download now button.

Otherwise, if you want to install the full Windows Essentials suite, open the Windows Essentials Web page and click on the Download now button. Installing Windows Essentials will prompt you to either install the entire suite or choose which applications you want. Make sure to at least select SkyDrive from the list.

You may see a message that SkyDrive is being updated to the latest version. You'll then receive a Welcome to SkyDrive screen. Click the Get started button. Sign in with your Microsoft account. The next screen confirms that your SkyDrive folder will be created under your Users folder. But you can change this to a different location. In my case, I set the SkyDrive folder under my Documents folder.

Click Next. You then determine what you want to sync. You can sync all of the folders under SkyDrive or just certain ones. The final "Fetch your files from anywhere" screen gives you the ability to access files on this PC from another computer. You can then click Done. You'll now need to move any folders you want to back up and sync to the new SkyDrive folder.

Only folders stored under the SkyDrive folder are included in the synchronization. You can now repeat this process for any other computers you want to synchronize with SkyDrive. I have one desktop and two laptops running SkyDrive. On each one, I included folders for my Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, and a few other file folders.

Those files are backed up to SkyDrive and also synced among my three computers. So, does SkyDrive provide all of the features of Live Mesh. No, not quite. SkyDrive does offer some advantages over Live Mesh. Sign in to vote. With a couple of mouse clicks, you can easily add an existing or new Windows folder to your mesh. As you add a folder to your mesh, it quickly replicates it to your other mesh devices.

Another way of phrasing the question is: is it the case that, due to the Web browser access, mesh folders must exist on Drive C:? Tuesday, October 20, PM.

You can add any Windows Folder with some exceptions to your Live Mesh as long as that source folder exists on a locally attached drive non-removable, non-network. Once you add a folder on PC 1 to the Mesh, it is automatically synchronized with the cloud based Live Desktop.

You can modify the sync settings to not sync with the Live Desktop. If you have other PCs in your Mesh, the newly added folder will be offered to it by appearing as a faded blue folder on the target PC's desktop. If you click that blue folder you have the option to accept the folder, in which case it ends up staying on the desktop of that PC or changing the location of the target to another existing location using the browse button.

When you browse to an existing folder, you are merging them, even if the target location is empty. It the target contains files already, they are merged into the Mesh and you will need to address any conflicts that arise. The default target can't be pre-defined - it is always offered to the desktop of the target PC and you need to configure each offered folder to point to where you want it to go or accept the default location.

If you simply click through the dialogs, it ends up on the desktop of the target and you will need to remove it from the Sync before moving it. Yes, I have successfully added folders from different PCs using the manner described above and yes, they do ask about merging which is fine.