Live Mesh Preview
Part Two: Hands on with Live Mesh

Back to Part One: Introduction...

Hands on with Live Mesh

Concepts are nice, but to truly understand something you have to get your hands dirty. I've been using the Live Mesh tech preview extensively since Microsoft first announced the initiative last week and even at this early (and yes, sometimes buggy) stage it's already become a central component of my daily computing experience. I'll explain why that's so in just a moment, but suffice to say it has little to do with experimentation and a lot to do with pragmatism: As it turns out, Live Mesh already solves some very basic computing problems quite effectively. And the thing isn't even fully realized yet. This gives me a lot of hope for the future.

So here's what you get. If you navigate to Microsoft's Live Mesh Web site for the first time and logon to your Windows Live ID, you'll be presented with the Devices page, which features a visual representation of your own Live Mesh, a circular entity with only one available location, the Live Desktop (Figure). Also available are links for adding a new device (currently limited to 32-bit Windows XP and 32-bit and 64-bit Windows Vista PCs), and shadowy representations of coming device type support for Macs and mobile devices. (So we're clear, Live Mesh considers the Live Desktop, your PCs and Macs, mobile devices, and, presumably, whatever upcoming devices it will support, as "devices.")

While I suppose you could access Live Mesh solely as an online service, it really springs to life when you install a bit of client code on your PC, a process that makes that PC part of your own mesh. Clicking Add Device, you're provided with a link to install the software on your PC (and I was intrigued to see that it correctly identified that I was running a 64-bit version of Vista the first time I tried this) (Figure). The local install process is fairly quick: You get a new blue Live Mesh icon in the system tray along with pop-up balloons that utilize a Windows Live look and feel. (Figure). Once the local install is complete, you're asked to logon to your Live ID account, which will complete the link between the PC and your mesh (Figure). You then provide a name for the PC, which will be used to identify it in the mesh. (Note that it will auto-fill your machine name, but you can use any name you'd like.)

Once the PC is added to your mesh, you'll see it visually represented in the Live Mesh Devices page (Figure). You can also select it and see a few related options (renaming, etc.) (Figure). If you select a device you're not currently using, you can connect to it remotely, but I'll get to that in a bit. And as you add more PCs (and, later, other devices), they'll show up in the Live Mesh devices view as well (Figure).

Live Desktop

If you click the Desktop link at the top of the Live Mesh Web site toolbar, you'll navigate to your Live Desktop, a Web-based desktop with 5 GB of online storage (Figure). Compared to your local PC desktop, the Live Desktop a bit simplistic. By default, there is a single link called Create new folder, which naturally lets you create folders within your Live Desktop. There's no sense of a real file system here, per se: All folders are created directly on the desktop and contain whatever documents and folders you'd like. There's also a simplistic taskbar on the bottom of the Live Desktop that provides button for open windows (like the Windows taskbar) as well as a storage meter and a Live Mesh button that duplicates the functionality of the locally-installed Live Mesh button. (Again, I will get to that in just a bit.)

As you create folders in the Live Desktop, you will discover that these entities bear some interesting similarities and differences with the folders you are familiar with from Windows. First, In the New Folder dialog that appears at folder creation (Figure), you're given the option to synchronize the contents of this folder with whatever devices (today, just PCs and the Live Desktop) that are part of your mesh. By default, a folder on the Live Desktop is not synchronized in any way with your connected PCs. However, a shortcut to that folder will be placed on the desktop of each connected PC. (See below for the ramifications of that.)

When you open a folder in the Live Desktop, you'll see something that looks very much like a Vista folder window, albeit with a new Live Mesh Bar attached to the right side (Figure). In the Live Desktop, this Live Mesh Bar cannot be minimized or closed: It provides access to three panes of information:

News. As discussed below, Live Mesh supports a centralized feed that details everything that happens in your mesh. Currently, this is a pretty limited range of information, but one can imagine it being more useful in the future.

Members. Here, you can add and edit the list of people who have access to each Live Mesh folder you create. By default, of course, you are the only member with access to your own folders. But when you click the Add link, you'll get a handy dialog for inviting others to own, contribute to, or just read the contents of the folder (Figure). That's instant peer-to-peer functionality for those keeping score at home.

Synchronized Devices. This pane details which Live Mesh devices are synchronized with the folder. Again, by default, any folder created directly from the Live Desktop is synced only with the Live Desktop, but you can add other devices here and elsewhere. (Figure)

Inside the more traditional folder view, you'll see a simplified Vista experience. There's a teal green toolbar with Organize, View, Upload File, and New Folder buttons. Organize and View come straight from Vista, but each offers just a subset of what's available in Vista. The Organize button opens a menu with just two options: New (as in folder) and Layout, which itself has just two sub-options, Detail Pane (on by default) and Navigational Panel (off by default, but essentially a folder tree view).

The View menu is likewise simplified from its Vista origins. There are just three view styles: Details, Icons (the default), and Media, the latter of which requires you to install Silverlight 2 beta and then presents a surprisingly unconfigurable slideshow view which I can't imagine too many people would be interested in (Figure).

Currently, the only way to upload a file to a Live Mesh folder is via the the Upload File toolbar button. (Microsoft says it will support drag and drop from the local PC in a coming update.) And you can only select one item for uploading at a time, making the Live Desktop a less-than-stellar way to upload files. (This is easier from the local PCs, as you'll see in a bit.)

On the bottom of the Live Desktop is that Live Mesh button, over in the far lower right. Hover over this with the mouse cursor and the Live Mesh menu will pop up. Like the Live Mesh Bar you see in Live Desktop folder windows, this menu provides access to your news, devices, and folders lists, but from a central location (Figure).

And ... that's about it. Put simply, the Live Desktop is basically just a view at the storage Microsoft is providing, as expressed by the folders you've created and, presumably, filled. Note that you cannot place files directly on the Live Desktop. They must be stored in folders you create.

Devices

Once you've linked a PC to your mesh, you'll see some changes on that local machine. As noted previously, a new Live Mesh icon will appear in your system tray. When you hover over this icon, you'll get the same Live Mesh menu you see in the Live Desktop (Figure). The only substantive difference is that the local version of this menu provides a pop-down menu under your user name whereby you can work offline, logoff, or exit Live Mesh.

Additionally, every time you create a folder directly from the Web-based Live Desktop, Live Mesh will create a special blue shortcut to that folder on the desktop of each connected PC (Figure). The first time you click this shortcut, it does not work as you might expect. That is, you can't simply double-click the shortcut and browse the contents of the folder online. Instead, you might think of these shortcuts as advertisements: You're presented with a Synchronize folder dialog (Figure) that allows you to set up some form of synchronization for the folder. So the first time you try to access it from a PC, the default synchronization choice will be changed to "When files are added or modified." If you accept this choice, you can optionally (and preferably) re-locate the local version of the folder and move on with life. If, however, you choose to change the sync type back to "never with this device," the shortcut will disappear from the PC desktop.

Assuming you do want to sync the folder between your local PC and the Live Desktop (and, potentially, other devices), the icon will change from a special blue shortcut to a special blue folder (Figure) and the window will open. As with folders viewed from the Live Desktop, locally-synced Live Mesh folders also include the Live Mesh Bar on the right (Figure). There's one major difference, however: On the PC, you can minimize (Figure) but not close the Live Mesh Bar if you'd like.

Inside the synchronized folder view, you'll see a weird mesh of Windows Vista and Live Mesh folder styles. The window retains whatever transparency settings you've configured in Vista, and includes the usual Vista Favorites Links bar. But the toolbar utilizes a limited range of buttons--just Organize and Views, as in the Live desktop--though they've full-featured, with all the options you get in Vista.

The most important thing to note about locally-accessed synchronized folders, of course, is that you can drag and drop content into them. And because they're automatically synchronized, any files and folders you copy into these folders on your PC will be synced back to the Web-based Live Desktop and to any other devices with which you've configured synchronization. (Because folder sync occurs on a folder-by-folder basis, you will need to manually configure each Live Folder to sync to each device. This can happen via the Live Desktop or individually on each PC.)

In my experience, folder synchronization is fast and reliable. So much so, in fact, that I've begun using this mechanism to synchronize the contents of the second edition of "Windows Vista Secrets," the book I'm currently working on. So as I work on chapters locally, via my desktop PC or notebook, those files are then synchronized automatically, both up to the Internet cloud (the Live Desktop) and to whatever other PCs I've synched. It's instant backup combined with instant access to the very latest versions of the files no matter which PC I'm using. Nice!

Microsoft also provides a handy remote access feature called Live Mesh Remote Desktop. To access this feature, open the Live Mesh menu, either on your local PC or from within Live Desktop, find the PC you'd like to remotely control, and then click the appropriate Connect to device link (Figure). Live Mesh will open a Remote Desktop window, complete with a unique Live Mesh Bar that includes remote desktop-oriented functionality such as Send CTRL + ALT + DEL, Hide desktop on remote device, and Show desktop as actual size (Figure).

By default, the remote desktop is scaled to fit the confines and resolution of the window, though you can use the aforementioned option to change that and scroll around within a truly windowed view of the remote desktop. I was able to use this functionality over the past weekend during a short trip to Cape Cod with my family: Working on this review, I realized I had left some needed files at home on my main PC's desktop. No problem: I just used Live Mesh Remote Desktop to access the PC and then Copy and Paste the necessary files between the two machines, over the Internet. That's good stuff, especially when you realize that the software essentially dealt with the vagaries of the networks at both ends of the equation (my home network and the wireless network at the hotel).

News

Under the covers, Live Mesh is built on top of an RSS feed-like infrastructure, and the News listings you can access via the Live Desktop and your local PC's Live Mesh menu reflect that, offering a list of the latest updates across your mesh. You can which folders are added, changed, or accessed. And if you set up a shared folder, you can use this mechanism to post messages that are attached to the actual folder, which is an interesting ability for those seeking to collaborate.

At this early state, the News capability isn't that exciting beyond the ability to communicate with others via shared folders. But I suspect this feature will be expanded dramatically in the months ahead, with Windows Live Hotmail and Messenger integration seeming like an obvious capability.

Looking to the future

Even in its current unfinished state, Live Mesh is a fascinating and useful service. But Live Mesh will really shine once Microsoft opens it up to outside developers and expands the built-in capabilities, both those that are already planned and those that will arise out of customer feedback. Microsoft says that the first Live Mesh SDK (software developer kit) won't ship until its PDC (Professional Developers Conference) this fall, and that's a shame. But even this early peek suggests that Live Mesh is well on its way to becoming a stable and viable platform for the future. It can only become more interesting as more device types are supported and more capabilities are added.

Developers who are interested in understanding this platform should keep their eyes glued to Microsoft's various Live Mesh online resources. I'd recommend starting with the Live Mesh blog and the Windows Live Dev Web site and blog.

Final thoughts

I occasionally mention technologies that get me excited about the future. I think back to Windows 95 (then called Windows 4.0), which convinced me that the Windows platform could be both useful and interesting. Windows 2000 (NT 5.0 at the time), which would finally combine the best of the Windows 9x line with the best of the NT world. Windows Media Center, which made digital media in the living room not just possible but amazing. And Windows Home Server, an under-heralded but important addition to any home office.

Live Mesh is such a technology, both exciting and useful. It erases years of doubt about Microsoft's understanding of the computing industry and how it's changing. It proves that the company is no longer interested in simply milking its past successes. Most important, for users, it provides a hopeful glimpse at a future in which heterogeneous devices and environments will no longer be islands of functionality that are hard or impossible to connect.

Even at this very early stage, the remote desktop and folder sharing functionality in Live Mesh works amazing well and is incredibly useful. That I wanted to and was able to integrate this technology into my daily workflow is a testament to the soundness of Microsoft's plan for the future. You might think that I am crazy to adopt technology this early in its development. And yet, it's already so useful, I'd be crazy not to. If you can get into the Live Mesh tech preview now, you should do so, if only to see what's happening there. Otherwise, get on the waiting list. You won't be disappointed.

--Paul Thurrott
April 27, 2008