Microsoft SkyDrive: Your ultimate starter's guide

September 30, 2012, 7:42 AM ? It's become incredibly easy to compute while you commute. Our laptops, tablets and even smartphones offer productivity functions ranging from excellent to serviceable, and pervasive broadband (hello 4G!) gives us the connectivity speeds we need to quickly summon up documents and data from the cloud.

That's how it works in theory, at least. Efficiently accessing all of your personal data in the cloud is rarely quite as simple as it sounds.

Between Dropbox, Box.net, Microsoft SkyDrive, Apple iCloud, and other services, a plethora of cloud-based storage options compete to provide you access to your documents, photos, and other data from all your different devices. Although not quite as popular as Dropbox (which has been around for years) or iCloud (which has a big built-in user base), Microsoft's SkyDrive is poised to make a big splash when Windows 8 officially launches in October. The Windows 8 SkyDrive app is prominently displayed on the Windows Store, and Windows Phone 8 is expected to seamlessly integrate your SkyDrive account with your smartphone.

But you don't need to wait for Windows 8 to start taking advantage of SkyDrive, as SkyDrive apps are already available for just about every major computing platform, and if an app isn't available for your operating system of choice, files stored in your SkyDrive folders are still accessible via a Web browser. In this guide, we'll show you how to set up SkyDrive on your PC, how to access your SkyDrive account from different devices, and how to use a few tips and tricks to get the most from this free service.

How to get started with SkyDrive

With Windows 8 (whether Standard, Pro, Enterprise, or RT), a Windows 8-style version of SkyDrive is installed by default with the OS and is available on the Start screen as soon as you boot up your PC. If you prefer to stay in Desktop mode while using your Windows 8 PC, you'll need to install the stand-alone SkyDrive application. (Using SkyDrive on any platform that doesn't run Windows 8 also requires the installation of this stand-alone app.)

To install the SkyDrive application on a desktop PC, simply open the SkyDrive homepage in your browser of choice and click on the Get SkyDrive button. The installation process is pretty simple: If you're running Windows, you need to click the Download SkyDrive For Windows button and save the file to your system. If you're running Mac OS X, click on the Mac OS X link in the text at the top of the page and then click on the Download button on the subsequent page.

Source: http://www.itworld.com/storage/299156/microsoft-skydrive-your-ultimate-starters-guide

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