Live Skydrive – How To Set Up as Network Drive via Gladinet Cloud Desktop 2.1

Posted on Jun 5, 2010 in Online Storage, Productivity, Tutorials by dee 4 Comments

Now that the latest version of Gladinet Cloud Desktop is out, my previous guide is now quite outdated.

Here is an updated guide on how to install, and configure Gladinet Cloud Desktop 2.0 to map your cloud storage as a network drive.

Windows Live SkyDrive is a facility that allows you up to 25gigs of storage space for free. The storage space is available anywhere and while its an excellent storage mechanism, it can get cumbersome dealing with uploading files and working through the web based interface.

Ideally, you want to have a folder structure set up on your computer so that you can just navigate through your SkyDrive just like you do any of your other hard drives. Gladinet is a cloud based service that does just that.  It brings online applications and storage to your local machine. Read below for more information on it.

Gladinet is a fully featured service that allows for (amongst others):

• Drive “mounting” (act of setting up an online storage like SkyDrive or Picasa or Google Docs as local hard drives)
• A Cloud based desktop that enables users to use online applications to work on local files.
• Task schedulers to cater for scheduled transfers of data (eg as backup)
• Smart file transfers that allows for encryption, compression and reliability.
• It allows you to upload images without resizing!! (If you use the web interface to upload images, they get resized automatically – this way it treats image files as data, so SkyDrive doesn’t resize or constrain the image in any way).

Prerequisites

In order to mount SkyDrive using Gladinet Cloud Desktop, you must have an existing Live SkyDrive account. If you don’t have one, you can follow the following guide to create one first: Live SkyDrive – 25 gigs of space for free!

Step 1

The first step would be to download Gladinet onto your machine and install it. There are two versions available on the website (http://www.gladinet.com): a Free Starter one and a Professional Edition. The Professional Edition is on a limited introductory offer, but as it costs money, I will use the free version You can download either of them on the following page: Gladinet Editions Download Page.

It comes in both 32 bit and 64 bit versions, so download the one that is suitable to your operating system.

Step 2 – Install the Application

Once downloaded, start the install process by clicking on the .msi file. Hit Next and agree to the license agreement. Hit Next again

Ensure that Start WebClient service and Register Gladinet Cloud Desktop to Windows Firewall are ticked and hit Next.

Choose a location to install the application to (I selected the defaulted) and click Next.

Click Next again and the install process will start. You may get an authorisation request from Windows which you will need to agree to in order to continue.

Once the install is complete, ensure that Launch Gladinet Cloud Desktop is ticked and hit Close.

Step 3 – Configuration

Gladinet 2.1 comes with a new configuration wizard. We will be installing the application as a free application. There is a professional version available. However, for everyday purposes, the free version should suffice.

Click Next (or if you have purchased a license, then this is the place to enter it).

I would recommend registering with Gladinet to receive future updates and news. This step is optional. If you don’t wish to receive emails from Gladinet, then simply click Next.

This is the main screen that we need to configure. You can add as many services as you like here. I prefer to start with Windows SkyDrive and add others as I go along.

For the purposes of this post, tick the Windows Live SkyDrive and click Next.

Leave all values as is. The only one you may wish to change (as I’ve done above) is to change the location of the cache. My c: drive is quite small, so I changed it to another drive by clicking the Change.. link.

Once happy hit Finish to complete the configuration.

Step 4 – Mounting Drives

When the configuration is complete, there will be two visible changes to your desktop:

There will now be a small notification icon on your mini task bar. Click on it will present the following menu:

In addition to this, there will also now be a new “drive” set up on your computer under the drive letter Z.

Open the Z drive by either clicking on it via My Computer, or clicking on the taskbar icon and selecting My Gladinet Drive (Z:)

Double Click on Windows Live SkyDrive.gvm

Simply enter your Windows Live Id and Password here and hit Next. Hit Finish to complete the mount operation.

Gladinet will then proceed to complete the configuration. If this is the first time you are setting up SkyDrive, a “Loading Online Storage Plugin” dialog box will appear.

Click on Yes to allow it to complete.

The creation process can take up to a minute to complete. Once complete, the following dialog box will be shown:

This is where you can specify your backup configuration. As this can be done later too (and I’ll write a post on this subject later), for now hit Cancel.

Your explorer window should now show Windows Live SkyDrive as a folder on your Z drive:

Double clicking on it will show you the contents of your drive just like any other folder on your local machine.

You can copy and move files to and from your SkyDrive account just like any other folder. Because the storage is cloud based, every time you transfer files to and from, it gets scheduled in Gladinet’s task manager and the transfer happens in the background.

Creating new folders using Gladinet defaults the permissions on the folders to you only (ie, not public).

Adding other Cloud Storage Types

This is as simple as going to your Gladinet Drive and clicking on “Click to mount [cloud storage].gvd”

Choose the Storage Provider from the long list of storage options and proceed through the very user friendly wizard to complete the configuration.

Using this method, I now have one place to access and manage my Google Docs, Picasa

Conclusions

As a simple drag and drop access to your online storage, it does what’s asked of it. It gave me a network drive that allowed me to access my online data stores and i can easily upload and download documents to and from my drives.

Currently, its one of the best ways to really make use of SkyDrive without having to go through a web explorer.

You can continue to explore Gladinet on your own by right clicking its mini-icon and checking out the various options.

You may also wish to read our guide on other storage and collaboration solutions. Click the following post to have a look (opens in a new window):

11 Free Services for Online Storage, Sharing and Collaboration

Relevant Links

• Introduction to Live SkyDrive – how to log on and use SkyDrive
• Gladinet Home Page
• Gladinet Blog
• Gladinet Edition Comparisons – between Starter, Professional and Premium editions.

Tags: Gladinet, Online Document Storage, Productivity, SkyDrive, Tutorials

• Pingback: Newb Tech » Article » Live SkyDrive – How To Set Up As Network Drive via Gladinet

• Pingback: Newb Tech » Article » How to Store Files Larger than 50megs on Live SkyDrive

• Pingback: Newb Tech » Article » Office Web Apps – Alternative to Google Docs

• Pingback: Newb Tech » Article » How to Install SkyDrive as a Network Drive via Gladinet (updated)