Live Mesh touts a simple, yet brilliant idea; being able to access my files and folders from anywhere. Whether it is done with syncing the contents between 2 or more computers utilizing peer-to-peer (P2P) technology or via the Live Desktop.

I decided that I should try to sync my music-collection between my laptop and desktop. Given the 5 GB limitation on what goes to the Live Desktop, I had to choose the P2P solution for my approx 120 GB music collection.

I recently went through my collection and fine tuned it, with album art and tags, utilizing iTunes, Zune and MediaMonkey. Time consuming but rewarding in the end when everything was in place.

Then I made the stupid decision to try out the Live Mesh Beta to sync between the two mentioned computers.

Installing Live Mesh and setting it up is fairly easy, but screwing it up is even easier.

When choosing to add a folder to your Live Mesh and then in the sync options choosing which computers to sync to, what happens is that on the “other” computer a destination folder is created on the desktop. Here is my first complaint ; why can I not choose destination folder myself? So that I can make two almost synced folders become synced? If that option is in there it so well hidden that I cannot find it.

Well, Ok I thought. I have enough disk-space on the C-drive of my desktop to add the entire music-collection. The sync started by itself – which is actually my second beef; why can I not force when Live Mesh is to sync or not? Anyway, folder structures were created and the process seemed to go just fine.

After a few days I found that the process of syncing had stopped, but that the desktop only had approximately 95 GB of the 120 GB it should have… I looked everywhere to find info on how to continue the sync process to no avail. Bummer.

Then I double-clicked the shortcut for the Live Mesh “music” folder on my laptops desktop with the unintended result of changing the sync folders location on my laptop – not to where the music was, but to my laptops desktop. AND – for some obscure reason – the result is (either from that clicking mistake or something else altogether) is that ALL my music on my laptop has disappeared! The folder structure is basically there. Album art is there. But not A SINGLE MP.3 or AAC file to be found.

Yes, I have a backup of the collection (unfortunately made before I tuned the collection), but…..

It is my own fault, I know. I did this on a laptop running a Win 7 Beta OS, with Live Mesh which certainly is in beta, but I am still annoyed (understatement). As it is I have to return to tuning my collection once again, but then I will sync it between the laptop and the desktop using an old and proven way: copy the contents to a removable drive and then onto the desktop. And from then on continue to manually sync the two collections. At least I get to control the procedure and the destination location.

So: At the moment I can not in any way, shape or form recommend using Live Mesh for syncing important folder/file structures. I have created a work folder I will use to sync between the beforementioned computers, but always keeping a backup around. I do think that Windows Live Sync might be a better tool for that, but that is a different post!

Edited; 2009-02-12 Typos…

Brandon LeBlanc has written a post on the Windows 7 Team Blog where he goes into the different SKUs of Windows 7.

Bloggers and pundits have been all over Microsoft for not making things easier for the consumers by having too many SKUs. I totally disagree and think that things are actually much easier this time around. Yes, there are 6 different SKUs mentioned;

• Windows 7 Home Premium
• Windows 7 Professional
• Windows 7 Starter (OEM only)
• Windows 7 Home Basic (OEM only)
• Windows 7 Enterprise (Volume License Agreements Only)
• Windows 7 Ultimate

But as Brandon clearly shows Home Premium and Professional are the two different SKUs most consumers will have to choose from. The others ones are aimed at niche markets, and will not even be available for most people.

He also states that;

We also make it easy for customers to change down the road. So let’s say I purchase Windows 7 Home Premium and want to upgrade to Windows 7 Professional. With Windows Anytime Upgrade I can, as it makes upgrading to another version of Windows 7 much easier now that we have a single image for every SKU. Users will be able to unlock upgraded editions of Windows 7 without original media or additional software as everything they need in order to upgrade will be on their PC already.

Because each SKU is a superset of the previous SKU for Windows 7 that means each higher edition SKU will also include every feature the lower edition SKUs has. Windows 7 Professional will have every feature that Windows 7 Home Premium has plus other business-oriented features such as the ability to join a domain.

I recommend going to the Windows 7 Team Blog and read the post in its entirety. Do I believe that the MS bashers out there will calm down – no, but anyway…

A closer look at the Windows 7 SKUs – Windows 7 Team Blog – The Windows Blog

Many bloggers and tech reviewers have written about the new Windows 7 taskbar. A lot of them, including Paul Thurrott, thinks that the default view of the new taskbar is too difficult for previous users of Windows to get used to; a case of simple not easy. (He has more and valid points in this article)

I decided that I wanted to find out for myself what I really thought about this and have tried it both in the new default setting as well as in an adjusted mode more similar to the Windows Vista way.

The  Old Way;

To adjust the taskbars way of working to a manner more resembling what Windows Vista and earlier versions did you will have to do the following;

1. Right click on the ‘Start’ button and select ‘Properties’

2. Select the ‘Taskbar’ tab.

3. In the dropdown menu Taskbar buttons, select ‘Never Combine’

4. Select to ‘Use small icons’

5. Click ‘Apply’ then ‘OK’

The result is a taskbar that looks like this in use;

As we can see from the screenshot above, active windows have labels and are looking different to non-active applications like the Outlook and Windows Media Player buttons above. Several open windows of one application is also separated, like we see with the Internet Explorer windows.

This is not exactly like the Old Way but pretty close. There are ways to reactivate the old ‘Quick Launch Toolbar’ if you want that back as well, but…

What is the point? I think that this kind of old way is more cluttered and busy and not at all appealing to the eye and do not think that it is a better way to use the taskbar.

The new default mode

Here we see that the ‘Internet Explorer’ active windows are combined and that there is a frame around the icon to designate that there are active windows. The non-active ‘Windows Media Player’ stands out since it is not emphasized with a frame and glossy look.

It took some getting used to, but not too long, and I think that it definitely looks better than the so-called ‘Old Way’ I described earlier. It is basically prettier and I find it just as easy as before to glance at the taskbar to find what windows I have opened up.

So basically I do not understand what people are complaining about. It is not hard to identify active applications and/or applications with multiple windows open in the new taskbar, rather the other way around – easy and I said earlier prettier on the eye (my opinion)

So there you have it… I actually think that Microsoft got this one right!

Slightly off topic: Paul linked to an article by Mike Halsey showing how to add a custom toolbar to the taskbar in order to get additional icons in there, like for instance the ‘Recycle Bin’.

In this screenshot I have activated this feature and have added two often used applications and the Recycle Bin to this part of the taskbar. I like it, and advice you to try it out.