Map Windows Live Skydrive in Windows 7

Windows Live Skydrive Folder – Icon

Online storage is all the rage nowadays, with many providers giving you multiple gigabytes of space on their servers for free. Microsoft’s Windows Live SkyDrive is among the best with an excellent user interface, 25GB of storage for free, the ability to upload multiple files at once, and much more. Since all that is required for use of the service is a Windows Live ID (like a Live.com or Hotmail email address), you may already have a SkyDrive account and not even know it. In the event that you don’t have a Windows Live ID yet, you can sign up for one free of charge at https://signup.live.com. Once you have your account created, now comes the business of setting up your computer so that you can map SkyDrive in Windows 7. The procedure for this is actually the same as mapping SkyDrive in Vista or XP as it uses the same software, Gladinet Cloud Desktop, in all cases. If you’re looking for a SkyDrive uploader, this is the way to go.

HOW TO MAP SKYDRIVE IN WINDOWS 7 AS A VIRTUAL DISK

STEP 1 – Download

Download Gladinet from the link provided above, and of course, save it somewhere you’ll remember.

STEP 2 – Install

Run the install program, accept the license agreement, and select whether or not you want the program to create a desktop or quicklaunch shortcuts for you. You should let the install register Gladinet with the Windows Firewall, otherwise it may be blocked and not function.

After you select your options here then continue onward and complete the install.

STEP 3 – Configuration

Gladinet should start up automatically after this. If it doesn’t then run it manually. Upon it starting for the first time they will offer an upgrade from their “starter edition” to their professional one, which includes more services it’ll connect to, but since SkyDrive mapping is included in the free version you can simply select “No Thanks”.

After this you’ll want to add your SkyDrive Virtual Drive. Setting it up is easy enough, you simply open up the configuration, select “Virtual Directory Manager” and then click the “Mount Virtual Directory” button. The dialog box to add it will show up as shown below:

Obviously you should select Windows Live SkyDrive as the storage provider, and then you can set the virtual directory name to whatever you’d like. On the next step you’ll enter your Windows Live ID and password, followed by selecting what drive letter you’d like to map it to. When it’s all setup, click “Finish”, and you’re set!

COMPLETION

After this you’ll be able to open up Windows 7’s Windows Explorer, and open up the drive, and browse your SkyDrive contents. My only real complaint with this is that the mapped drive is far slower than the web interface as far as simply uploading a file to where you want it. The reason for this is that is that the directory refresh is painfully slow. A lot of the time this isn’t a huge deal for me, especially if I have many files to upload. It’s also much faster to use the SkyDrive virtual disk to move files around that have already been uploaded as the process for moving a file to a different SkyDrive folder is extremely time consuming and tedious.

Gladinet also supports many, many other online storage services. Because of this, you can not only mount your SkyDrive drive, but you can mount other services such as:

• Amazon S3
• AT&T Synaptic Storage
• Box.net
• EMC Atmos Online
• FTP
• File Server Share
• Google Docs
• Google Storage
• Mezeo
• Nirvanix
• Peer1 CloudOne
• Windows Azure
• WebDav
• Other services using their SDK Custom Plugin

So, easy enough, eh? If you have any other utilities that also provide this service (possibly better?), then post what you use in the comments below!