Windows Live Mesh is Microsoft's software+services data synchronization platform. Because of its complex nature, most people assume that file synchronization is all there is to Live Mesh, but in reality, that's just the tip of the iceberg. Microsoft has big plans for the service and syncing files between computers and the cloud is just the start. When Live Mesh launched, it was currently a closed "technical preview" (that's Microsoft for "beta"). But now it appears that the Live Mesh guys have quietly opened up the platform for all of the U.S.
LiveSide reported last night that folks were able to sign up for Mesh if they were in the U.S. and this morning, they confirmed this to be the case.
The official announcement was made in the Live Mesh Forum. It read:
Live Mesh is now openly available to anyone in the U.S.
The Live Mesh team is pleased to announce that anyone in the U.S. can now use Live Mesh just by signing in to www.mesh.com with a valid Windows Live ID. No sign up needed to participate!
International Customers
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.Feedback
Once you've begun using Live Mesh, we'd love to hear from you! We are working hard to create the best experience and appreciate any feedback you have. Please send us feedback using our online form. You can also submit (and view others') feedback and bugs here on the Microsoft Connect website.
Thank you,
The Live Mesh team
For those of you unfamiliar with the service, one of the main things you need to know is that at the moment, the service is Windows-only. However, Microsoft has confirmed in the past that a Mac client is in the works. Eventually it will work with mobile devices, too. Certainly those will include Windows Mobile, but also any other devices that permit it to run. They should have some takers, though, because Mesh isn't built with proprietary code, but rather with open protocols that most web developers are familiar with, including HTTP, RSS, REST, ATOM and JSON. Although Mesh's FeedSync is new, it is an XML protocol based on ATOM and RSS.
With Mesh running on your computers, you can simply right-click any folder and choose "Add to Mesh." By doing so, that folder and all the files it contains are synchronized with all of your other computers you've added to your personal Mesh. It also syncs those files to the Live Mesh Desktop, which is Mesh's "cloud" - an online web site you can access from any computer. At the moment, the online storage is limited to 5 GB, but that could change in the future. However, Mesh's recent update allows you to set folders to sync via peer-to-peer, bypassing Live Desktop.
A Live Mesh Folder
When folders are Mesh-enabled, a small panel appears to the right of the folder in explorer which catalogs any changes to the folder (file adds/moves/deletions) as well as notes and comments left by any of the folder's members.
Some people have compared Mesh to Apple's Mobile Me (I discussed this on my personal site not too long ago), but that's a little bit off the mark. Where Mobile Me is a consumer-focused product that offers sync and cloud storage, too - the difference is that Mesh is actually a platform. A service like Mobile Me could be built on Mesh, for example, so what you're seeing today with the file sync is sort of like a demo app of what the Mesh platform can do. However, that being said, we hope to see Mesh doing more than file sync in the future.
You can read our initial review of the service here
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Comments
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We've heard great things about this tool! Looking forward to checking it our ourselves.
Posted by: Brick Marketing | July 16, 2008 7:21 AM
I just have one question about live Mesh. Can someone give me a *really* compelling usage scenario aside from file sync?
Posted by: Hank Williams | July 16, 2008 7:43 AM
Disclaimer - I work for Microsoft but not anywhere close to Live Mesh
More than file sync, I use it for remote desktop-ing into any of my machines from anywhere. That's as killer to me as file sync
Posted by: Sriram Krishnan | July 16, 2008 8:04 AM
How does Mesh allow remote desktop access??
How secure is it??
Is it like using regular RDP within a network??
Posted by: Tom | July 16, 2008 8:28 AM
Hi,
Great news, allready signed up.. i like their idea, especially the Live Desktop thing, it could be cool to devleop applications to it.
I do however wonder about something - the mesh team says that Mesh should be considered a platform - but how do that compare to some of the webdesktops out there, i have recently started to develop my first application for StartForce (www.startforce.com) - and with the rumor of soon to come update to their online service i think Microsoft have a heavy competitor there.
What do you think ?
Posted by: Thomas Hayden | July 16, 2008 8:29 AM
very good, for the US
Posted by: Ian Rathbone
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July 16, 2008 8:39 AM
@Ian: And to everyone else who can set their system Region to en-US
Posted by: Yuvi
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July 16, 2008 8:40 AM
@Tom, @Sriram: Yes - remote access is excellent, too - how could I forget!
@Tom - to answer your question:
via http://dev.live.com/img/files/LiveMesh1stLook.pdf:
Live Mesh Remote Desktop builds on the Windows Remote Desktop Protocol, enhancing it in four key ways:
* End-to-end connectivity that is accomplished through a combination of client logic and hosted relays, enabling you to connect regardless of network topology, firewalls, or network address translation.
* Device presence that enables you to see which of your devices are available for a remote connection.
* Stronger connection security, in which ports are opened only when authorized requests are routed through the Live Mesh rather than leaving ports open to receive connections—and with only the source of a request able to connect to opened ports. This is a more robust approach to security than simply requiring a user name and password.
* End-to-end encryption, in which traffic is encrypted with a key known only to the two devices involved in the session, making it extremely difficult for any other device (including Live Services Platform relays) to snoop on the traffic.
Posted by: Sarah Perez
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July 16, 2008 8:47 AM
@Hank - this CNet article discusses this some http://news.cnet.com/8301-13953_3-9929034-80.html
some business usage scenarios are mentioned here: http://redmondmag.com/columns/article.asp?EditorialsID=2694
Posted by: Sarah Perez
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July 16, 2008 8:51 AM
Its odd isn't it that MS actually states that anyone can do it by setting their windows account to EN-US? Or is it that they specifically want to test US only functionality?
Posted by: Ian Rathbone
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July 16, 2008 9:11 AM
I think it involves globalization. They probably haven't localized to other regions beside en-us.
Posted by: Alan Le
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July 16, 2008 9:49 AM
I've been in the tech preview for a few weeks and already rely on it. Once they roll out the Mac client that they're using internally I'll be even happier.
Posted by: Sprague D
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July 16, 2008 10:29 AM
Does it still require UAC to be turned on? I hate and don't need UAC
Posted by: Alan Le
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July 16, 2008 10:31 AM
They fixed the UAC issue.
Posted by: Bruce Williams
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July 16, 2008 10:33 AM
Alan, I'm using XP, but I think they worked around the UAC issue on Vista. Here's the product forum -- the Mesh team is pretty responsive: http://forums.community.microsoft.com/en/LiveMesh/threads/
Posted by: Sprague D
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July 16, 2008 10:34 AM
thanks. friendfeed is great for getting answers quickly to stuff that you're interested in.
Posted by: Alan Le
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July 16, 2008 10:36 AM
Looks like the Live Mesh blog is clarifying the latest news to say that they've just doubled the amount of users... not that it's necessarily open to everyone.
Posted by: Bob Caswell
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July 16, 2008 11:55 AM
so anyone can sign up and have a useless piece of software?
Posted by: Chris Jones
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July 16, 2008 12:02 PM
@sarahintampa You wouldn't happen to know if Mesh has a per folder file limit (Foldershare's is 10,000)?
Posted by: Bob Caswell
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July 16, 2008 12:07 PM
@Bob - I responded on Twitter, but I don't believe there's a limit. The online limit is on Live Desktop (the online "cloud" portion of the service and that's 5 GB)
Posted by: Sarah Perez
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July 16, 2008 1:48 PM
Chris - it's not useless at all
Posted by: Sarah Perez
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July 16, 2008 1:51 PM
any release date for the mac client or maybe a video how it looks, I'm not bothering to tweak system settings just to register
Posted by: Dobromir Hadzhiev
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July 16, 2008 2:01 PM
@Bob fyi - I responded to you via Twitter - no limit except for cloud storage site (currently 5 GB)
Posted by: Sarah Perez
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July 16, 2008 5:21 PM
good service ... will see what'll hapen in the future now that the service is open to all.
Posted by: LiviuX | July 17, 2008 9:09 AM
So, does this work from behind corporate proxy?
Posted by: Sridhar Katakam | July 18, 2008 9:09 AM
fuck microsoft
couldn't they release its for other countries?
Posted by: msft sux | July 31, 2008 11:03 AM