Live Mesh leaves beta as part of free software shake-up

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Gallery

By Barry Collins

Posted on 3 Jun 2010 at 07:33

Microsoft's PC synchronisation service - Windows Live Mesh - is to leave beta as part of a refresh of the company's free Windows Live Essentials software.

Live Mesh – now rebranded Windows Live Sync – automatically synchronises files or folders across multiple PCs or Macs. It was first launched two years ago, and has become something of a favourite in the PC Pro office.

Microsoft has added a couple of new features to Live Sync in time for the full release. The software will now synchronise both Internet Explorer bookmarks and Microsoft Office settings across different PCs, meaning users don't have to keep setting up the same email signatures across their various machines, for example.

Live Sync will also be integrated with Microsoft's free online storage service, SkyDrive. But although Live Mesh beta testers were given 5GB of online storage space - so that they could access any synchronised files from a web browser - only 2GB of SkyDrive's 25GB of free storage is allocated to Live Sync files.

"We made this decision carefully in order to reach as many people as possible with a free service," a Microsoft spokesperson told PC Pro, when we asked about the reduction in storage space. "We learned from the Mesh beta that most people used online storage to store frequently used files for access across devices. On average, beta participants used much less than 2GB of storage."

Photo Gallery

Aside from the launch of Live Sync, several other apps in the Live Essentials line-up have been given a makeover. Windows Live Photo Gallery now includes face detection, with the software attempting to automatically identify people in photos.

Photo Gallery also attempts to head off the problem of group shots being ruined by, say, someone having their eyes shut by stitching together a composite of multiple images. So, for example, if two photos are taken in quick succession of the same group, the face of the person with their eyes closed can be seamlessly replaced with one where their eyes are open.

Movie Maker and Mail

As with Photo Gallery, Microsoft is making it much easier to share videos on social-networking groups with the revamped Movie Maker. The software now includes buttons to upload edited videos directly to services such as Facebook and YouTube, as well as Microsoft's own SkyDrive.

Meanwhile, Windows Live Mail is being "upgraded" with Conversation View, a feature that's recently been introduced into Outlook 2010 - with little success, according to our review.

Mail also includes a new photo gallery feature, that makes it easier to share albums of photos uploaded to Microsoft's Sky Drive.

All of the new Windows Live Essential apps will be launched in beta, with a full launch planned for later this summer.