14 DAY TRIAL // With the delivery of the first Beta development milestone of Windows Live Essentials 2011 / Wave 4, Microsoft announced that it was melting together two overlapping services Windows Live Sync and Live Mesh. At that time, it appeared that only Sync would survive, while getting some Mesh features and capabilities, especially since the Redmond company appeared to have decided to go with Windows Live Sync Beta.
So, just to be clear, despite following the message on Mesh.com: “Live Mesh will soon be replaced by the new Windows Live Sync,” fact is that Live Mesh appeared to have been rebranded as Windows Live Sync, only to be now rebranded again Windows Live Mesh.
“In our beta release, we brought the best of Windows Live Sync and Live Mesh together. With the addition of remote access and cloud storage, we understand that the new program does more than sync files,” explained Allison O’Mahony, Principal Program Manager Lead, Devices & Roaming.
“So following the beta period, we’ll be using the name Windows Live Mesh going forward, which we feel best reflects our broader goal of allowing you to access your stuff across your devices,” she added.
However, the rebrand does bring some good news for users, especially since they stand to get more out of the service.
In the final version of Windows Live Mesh, customers will be able to synchronize hidden files. On top of this, synced folders now have the capability to detect unsynchronized items and to provide this information to users.
Microsoft also worked to increase the Cloud storage space available to customers.
“When syncing files to the cloud, beta participants get 2 GB of synced cloud storage. Only 2% of these participants are using more than 1.5 GB,” O’Mahony said.
“However, Live Mesh offers 5 GB, and while only a small number of Live Mesh customers use all their space, we want to ease migration and increase the online storage limit from 2 GB to 5 GB.”
Still, users should not expect the same level of free online storage space as offered by SkyDrive.
“A number of customers have asked why we don’t allow you to sync up to 25 GB, given that 25 GB is the SkyDrive limit,” O’Mahony said.
“While we merged Sync and Live Mesh in this release, we did not merge the online storage system used for Live Mesh with the one used for Office or Photos on SkyDrive. This means that each system has different storage limits and is optimized for different scenarios.”
At the same time, the Redmond company has focused on boosting the speed of Windows Live Mesh. The changes were made in response to tester feedback, and the Redmond company promises that the update will bring to the table noticeable improvements.
“We worked on cutting the application load time in half and made syncing large numbers of folders and adding multiple devices to a sync folder faster. We’ve optimized both memory and CPU usage during sync activity as well as decreased CPU consumption by as much as 30% when Windows Live Mesh is idle,” O’Mahony explained.
Windows Live Essentials Wave 4 Build 15.4.3001.0809 is available for download here.