Windows Live SkyDrive Launches Today


Posted by Brandon LeBlanc on Thursday, February 21, 2008 9:58 AM 29 Comments

Today Windows Live SkyDrive leaves the "Beta" tag behind - introducing 5GB of storage for its users and becoming available in 35 new countries and regions. Read the Windows Live SkyDrive launch announcement from their team blog!

On top of being available to users in the United States, United Kingdom, and India, Windows Live SkyDrive is now available in the following 35 countries and regions:

Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Bolivia, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, France, Finland, Guatemala, Honduras, Italy, Japan, Korea, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Norway, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, and Turkey.

With 5GB of storage, you can store quite a bit of your photos, music, Office documents and more. Did I mention that the 5GB of storage is also free?

For those who have been beta testing Windows Live SkyDrive - with today's launch you can expect to see improvements with the backend that help improve performance on top of the increase to 5GB of storage from 1GB previously.

Here on the Windows Experience Blog, I use Windows Live SkyDrive to host the OPML files for my Microsoft Team Blogs page. Yes, the page may be a little out of date but a big update is coming very soon with a few more categories. You can download the OPML files and add them to your RSS feed reader directly from Windows Live SkyDrive. We also have a Public Folder setup on Windows Live SkyDrive for the Windows Vista Team Blog too.

You can head on over to skydrive.live.com and login with your Windows Live ID to use Windows Live SkyDrive today.

FEB 21
 

Posted by dovella

OLéèèèèèèèèèèèèè

Grazie Brandon

THX MICROSOFT :D :D :D :D :D
FEB 21
 

Posted by windows vista ultimate user254

thank you MS now this is some grat news

FEB 21
 

Posted by chakkaradeep

Wow! Cool! Thanks Microsoft!
FEB 21
 

Posted by windowsxp

The Windows live services is the same as .Mac, exept one thing:

Mac + .Mac = THE FUTURE!

Yesterday I bought a new MacBook and upgraded my iMac to Mac OS X 10.5.2 Leopard!

Q: Lovely Leopard, how can I thank Apple for helping me make this switch?

A: Call Apple and say thank you!

Q: What should I do if I want to my recycle Windows pc?

A: Throw everyting in the bin.

Supporting http://www.apple.com/dotmac/
FEB 21
 

Posted by dovella

hey windowsxp

Listen me

Mac+Mac = WC

Mac USer+ Mac = TROLL

Leopard + Apple = Vaporware

Apple + S.J = ShowBuisness

Windows = Future , and I CAN.

You have Agp or now PCI e? :D :D :D:

MAc you re OLD.

BYE
FEB 21
 

Posted by Spencer

Fantastic!
FEB 21
 

Posted by Nish

That is nice of Microsoft...
FEB 21
 

Posted by Good_Bytes

oh ok.. I thought it was a net drive that you access in Vista.

I was expecting that you have some sort of drive that you add in Vista that you can access from any of YOUR computer, and fast.

This would be great for people like that that don't have external HDD, and would like to access their files form Home1 or Home2, or laptop trough network.

Oh well.
FEB 21
 

Posted by newscientist2000

Great news, love Skydrive.  Great for sharing family videos aswell as pictures.  I shared a few home vids with my Brother in Europe using Skydrive.  Microsoft seems to be making a lot of the right moves lately.

Except this that annoyed me today...the stupid Genuine Office Validation stuff that restricts downloads of Microsoft Office Templates to users of Office 2007.  Sure I have Office 2007 on my wifes laptop but my Desktop is Office 2003, kinda sucks to have the rejected notice pulled on ya when your running Genuine software but no templates for you as your one version back!

Infact we cant even get access to any Office Templates at work because our Network security doesnt allow regular users to install active X controls on their machines.  Ironic that a bussinesses are likely the ones who suffer when stuff like this is pulled.

Just my 2 cents!
FEB 22
 

Posted by adrian

hey nick, could you confirm if the Philippines is also one of the countries where Skydrive's being offered?
FEB 22
 

Posted by adrian

oh shoot, it should be brandon hehehe :)
FEB 22
 

Posted by Brandon LeBlanc

Adrian, I don't believe SkyDrive is available in the Philippines yet. I'm told that the countries listed in the above post are the countries in which SkyDrive is avilable as of today. I'll double-check with the SkyDrive Team though.

- Brandon
FEB 22
 

Posted by SteveBallmer

Let's see crapple and the others touch that! We are the very first company in the world to have online storage! WhoooHoooo!
FEB 24
 

Posted by AnXa

"Q: What should I do if I want to my recycle Windows pc?

A: Throw everyting in the bin."

FAIL!

Q: What should I do if I want to my recycle Windows pc?

A: Install Windows Home Server, Debian Gnu/Linux or OpenSolaris and make it home server for daily basis. It might serve as a storage drive for your fancy OSX Time Machine or your daily files. Maybe game server or irc server... There are lots of things you can do with it. Windows Home Server offers just basics but with Gnu/Linux for example you can make for lots of fancy use.
FEB 24
 

Posted by AnXa

Thanks SkyDriveTeam. Nice to see Microsoft coming up to compete with .Mac about market share.

I hope it's working for everybody no matter what OS they are using.

Integration with Windows Vista might be ahead in future, yes? :)
FEB 25
 

Posted by dovella

See my small Idea for skydrive jere

http://dovellas.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!B957C4A398135A12!803.entry

:D

FEB 25
 

Posted by DR. AMAR KUMAR

GRREAT !!
FEB 25
 

Posted by Hoogle

Q: What should I do if I want to my recycle Windows pc?

A: Spend sometime in teaching your pets--dogs,cats,or something else familiar with your windows pc. Or maybe you can teach them to find a boy dog/cat on the internet. aha!
FEB 25
 

Posted by dthigpen

Are there currently any plans to make this service as a mountable drive in Windows Explorer?  I can see some great implementations for things such as nightly document backups for the 'standard user' if this was implimented.
FEB 25
 

Posted by john

Brandon, while I applaud tis, I cannot help but see that no African languages are supported.

Is this a joke?

1 billion Africans are forced to SkyDrive in foreign languages?

Please say it ain't so, and that the SkyDrive team is working on it!

Man, I'm pi$$ed!
FEB 25
 

Posted by windows vista ultimate user254

WTF African languages

africa dont even have skydrive xD
FEB 26
 

Posted by dovella

@john

not emotion too much, you do not see how many countries still are not covered ??

also we in Italy have been a lot often discarded, this time we have been fortunate to having the service between first.therefore it tries not to be gross and you know to attend
FEB 26
 

Posted by john

@dovella: No worries, man. Brandon is my friend, I was just giving him a hard tme.
FEB 26
 

Posted by Brandon LeBlanc

john, good feedback on the African languages. Relaying it to the SkyDrive Team.

Oh and John, you should be giving me a hard time more here! ;-) Keeps me on my toes.

- Brandon
FEB 26
 

Posted by dovella

ok john ;)

Gibbon :D
FEB 26
 

Posted by saladbar1

Thats cool... now I have an additional 5 GB to my 7+ GB iDisk (cough cough)
FEB 28
 

Posted by ashish

I logged in to check it out. Nice and simple.

A few points I noticed -

1) The upload was much slower as compared to normal upload to web. A simple file took almost double the time.

2) Although I did not spend too much time on it today, I could not find a way to move files betweeb folder. I mean I would live to shift files from private to shared to public as and when needed. Maybe I would look for methods..

3) Would the files in the shared folders be avaiable to only those who have a Live ID?

Still thinking - If I have to put my work docs onto it for sharing with coworkers.. not sure..

Ashish
FEB 28
 

Posted by Brandon LeBlanc

ashish,

I haven't noticed bad upload speeds myself - where are you located?

There isn't a way to move files between folders in Windows Live SkyDrive just yet - however the SkyDrive Team is watching the comments on this post so I'll be sure they see your feedback on this.

And yes - files in shared folders can be shared with only folks who have Windows Live ID's. That is how permissions are set and that is how folks login to the site to access the shares.

However you can make folders public too.

Nick and I use SkyDrive to share files such as Word Documents and Excel spreadsheets all the time and its worked out well.

- Brandon
FEB 29
 

Posted by saladbar1

SteveBallmer:

"Let's see crapple and the others touch that! We are the very first company in the world to have online storage! WhoooHoooo!"

Just to let you know, Apple has had their iDisk feature with .Mac long before SkyDrive.
Anonymous comments are disabled
© Copyright 2007 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.