More recently, the only possible option for saving your documents was a bulky hard drive. For quick backup, users used CD / DVD discs , the capacity of which very soon became completely insufficient.
That is why the appearance of SkyDrive was met with such enthusiasm. What is it, by the way? This is a "cloud" storage from the notorious company Microsoft. With the advent of Windows 8, the importance of this service has increased dramatically. The fact is that in order to promote and popularize the service, the company offers to save all documents to the “cloud” by default. The first to feel it was the users of the new Microsoft Office 2013.
However, you should not assume that this approach carries only minuses. There are many positive aspects to it.
Positive nuances
First, Microsoft did not repeat its own old mistakes, and therefore released a client program that supports all existing operating systems: Windows 7/8, Mac OS, Android, iOS. The move turned out to be successful, but because this client for cloud storage today has its own honest few percent of the market.
Among other things, cross-platform gives other advantages: the program fully supports Office Web Apps, and therefore you can edit your files from any modern browser by going to SkyDrive.com. In addition, there is an option for sharing documents, publishing photos on social networks.
If we talk about corporate users, then they will surely like that for jointly edited documents, you can set separate permissions for both reading and changing content. SkyDrive (you already know what this is) until recently provided all users with 25 GB of free disk space. Today they give out only 7 GB, but if you want, you can easily buy more.
In this article, we will take a closer look at the features described above, and also dwell on integration with social networks.
Beginning of work
To get started, you need to register with SkyDrive. What does it mean? To do this, go to the website of Microsoft itself, and then come up with a nickname and password. Owners of Windows 8 / 8.1 are relieved of this need: they have already done all that is required during the installation of the system. Important! You can now use the same registration data to access almost all Microsoft services (for entering Skype, for example).
In a word, the successful experience of Apple and Google did not go unnoticed.
Useful Tips
In principle, you can immediately go to the service page, which is easy to use in web mode. But for convenient and productive work with it, it is advisable to download the SkyDrive application. What does this give the average user? We will answer this question later, but for now, consider the procedure for installing the program on your system.
First, download the installation file. Important! Look carefully at the links, as the site has versions for both Windows and MacOS. During installation, the client automatically integrates into the system. In particular, appropriate items will be added to the context menu.
By the way, how to remove SkyDrive from the system if the program becomes unnecessary? Its uninstallation is no different from that for other applications. Important! All files that were previously synchronized are stored in the registry and on the company's servers. If you do not want this, then you must erase them before uninstalling the program from the hard drive.
Using this application (and here is the answer to the above question!), You can also mount a virtual disk in your system , working with it as with a physical drive.
Of course, this will allow you to quickly and with maximum convenience synchronize files between your computer and the SkyDrive “cloud”. Logging in is performed when the password is entered into the system (in Windows 8). In addition, you can enter credentials in the main program window.
How to manage your files properly
Since the application interface actually repeats that for the "Explorer", then problems with the initial development of the program will definitely not arise.
First, pay attention to the upper right corner. There is an icon "Sort", with which you can see files with some preferred properties. Simply put, this option sorts documents by date of change, size and other parameters. The data display mode can also be changed. As in the usual "Explorer", it is better to use the table mode, since it displays more data.
In the tiled version of the display, large collections of photographs look great, because when previewing it is convenient to find out all the information about the files you are interested in.
In addition, you can call up the sidebar, which also displays all the data you need.
Service management
Almost all control is carried out using the mouse, so there will be no particular problems with addiction. As with regular disks, you can create and delete folders and files, rename them. Of course, nested directories are supported.
Create folders and files
To create a folder, you can simply click on the “Create” icon located in the upper toolbar. By clicking on it, you will see a drop-down context menu in which there are corresponding items. Having created the catalog, do not forget to immediately give it a meaningful name.
All the same can be done using the standard features of Windows Explorer. To find out about all the available options, select the folder with the right mouse button: the context menu will open, in which they will all be listed in detail.
If you don’t need SkyDrive, disabling the service is easy: right-click on the application icon in the system tray, and then select the “Exit” item.
Description of program features
As we have already said, most of the functionality of the program is understandable, since it completely repeats the capabilities of the standard "Explorer". However, there are some differences that we’ll talk about today.
So, the option “Download” will allow you to download a folder or a specific file to your hard drive.
Using the “Share” command, you will receive a link to the document, which will be displayed on the social networks with which you paired the application. Thus, all your friends get access to documents. Unfortunately, they can only be downloaded, as co-editing options in Windows SkyDrive are not provided.
The "Embed" button is responsible for approximately the same thing, by clicking on which an HTML code is generated, which is convenient to embed in blogs and other Internet resources.
We work with photos
How could you expect not to use such an amount of free disk space for storing massive media files? Photos, for example. Managing them is practically no different from that for other files, but there are some features.
In particular, they are allocated only with the right mouse button. In addition, the context menu has some special items. In particular, when you select "Open", the photo is displayed in the local viewer. Since it is quite functional, you should talk about it in more detail.
Look at the top working menu: there is a "Slide Show" button, clicking on which launches the option of the same name. By the way. For a slide show, it is not necessary to download photos to the hard drive. If you have a decent Internet channel, then there will not be a problem with viewing slides directly from the network.
Below you can see a ribbon of slides with miniature icons that are responsible for previewing photos. An information panel is displayed on the right, on which information about each specific file is displayed: its size, resolution, shooting date, etc.
Social Media Integration
If you describe any Internet service that has been created recently, then you can’t do without mentioning social networks. Not to say that such functionality is really useful, but Facebook fans will surely like it. Unfortunately, integration with domestic social services is not provided. Nothing is known about the plans of the developers in this regard either.
How to share your file on any Google+ using Microsoft SkyDrive? First, pay attention to the upper right corner: there is an “Add Services” icon. Click on it. A list of social networks will drop out , among which you should select the desired one by clicking on it with the left mouse button.
An authorization window will appear in which you need to specify your identification data. To send your photo or other file to a social network, you should use the functionality of the “Share” command, which we mentioned above.
If you need to send a photo to several social networks at once, check the boxes next to the required items in the dialog box. By the way, from there you can even write a whole post on Facebook. Because of this, foreign users often use SkyDrive to run their blogs. Synchronizing the service with a computer helps to keep all the information in them up to date.
conclusions
Our users still have some distrust of the functionality that this cloud storage provides them with. Meanwhile, this service helps not only to store user photos and videos, but also to share their impressions on the network.