Microsoft SkyDrive is there version of an online storage service. SkyDrive allowed you to store your documents, photos and music just like Dropbox or Box. One of the main reason to use SkyDrive is the amount of free space they have been offering. Right now you can get 8 GB free if you are a newcomer to SkyDrive or 25 GB free if you have an existing SkyDrive account. That is a lot of space! The only problem is its online. We will show you two ways to map SkyDrive to your Windows 7 PC.
Map SkyDrive to Windows 7 using Office 2010
The first method is to use Office 2010. I recommend this way over the second method because it is a lot simpler and has a higher success rate. If you don’t have Office 2010 install you can simply go to Microsoft Office website and download the Office 2010 trail. After you have the trail installed or have your own version installed you will need to link your Windows Live ID with your Windows 7 user account. Make sure that is complete first before continuing. Next after all of that is finished, open either Word, Excel, or PowerPoint. We will use Excel.
The next step is to click on the File menu of either Word, Excel or PowerPoint. Then click the Save & Send menu item and click Save to Web. Click the Sign in button. Note this will auto log you in if you linked your Windows 7 account to your Windows Live ID.
Next select the folder you want to map. For me I will select the Documents folder to map. Click the Save As button at the bottom of the folders.
The Save As window will appear. In the address bar copy the address.
Now go down to the taskbar and open an Explorer window. You can do this by either clicking the folder in the taskbar or right clicking on the Start Orb and selecting Open Windows Explorer.
In the Explorer window select the Computer icon in the left pane.
Then in the menu bar select Map network drive.
In the Map Network Drive options, select the Drive letter by choosing one from the drop down. Then past the address you copied earlier from the Save As window.Make sure the check box for Reconnect at logon is checked. Click Finish to map the drive.
It will take a couple of seconds to map, so be patient. If you didn’t connect your Windows Live ID with your Windows 7 account you might be prompt for a user name and password. Just make sure to enter in your account if that happens. After it finishes you will see your new mapped drive under Network Location.
If you don’t like the name it has, just right click on the drive and select Rename from the right click content menu.
Give it a name that you can understand.
That is it for method one. Every time you log in it will automatically reconnect, so you don’t have to worry about reconnecting it. Now lets move on to method two.
Map SkyDrive to Windows 7 using the Manual Method
This method is a little tricky and can be a real pain to get it working. First you will want go to https://skydrive.live.com and sign in. Go to your folders, like the Public folder and click on it. In the URL copy the characters after CID= to &id. Just like the picture below.
Then open the Map Network Drive window just like above by going to the Explorer window and select the Computer icon in the left pane then Map Network Drive in the menu. In the folder path you will want to enter https//d.docs.live.net/YOURCID/^.Public. It should look like the picture below.
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