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I wanted to address an issue related to the SkyDrive release yesterday. For any of you who are using a Windows Phone, you may have noticed that if you had previously used the Office hub to view any of your OneNote notebooks or Office documents, you may have received a message that the items were deleted from the server, or could not be downloaded.
Your items have NOT been deleted from the server.
What happened is that the URLs for the documents have changed, and this has confused the Office hub into thinking they were removed.
We really apologize for this message and any confusion this may have caused.
We’ve posted a workaround on windowslivehelp.com that is required for you to get things working again.
Issue: We’re aware that some people are experiencing issues with opening SkyDrive files and notebooks from the Office hub on the Windows Phone, such as: When opening a SkyDrive document from the documents pivot, or a document pinned to the start screen, an error message appears saying that the file could not be downloaded. When opening a OneNote section, an error message appears saying that the section has been deleted from the server.
Issue: We’re aware that some people are experiencing issues with opening SkyDrive files and notebooks from the Office hub on the Windows Phone, such as:
When opening a SkyDrive document from the documents pivot, or a document pinned to the start screen, an error message appears saying that the file could not be downloaded.
When opening a OneNote section, an error message appears saying that the section has been deleted from the server.
Workaround: To fix this issue, you will need to reset Office. In the event that you experience one or both of the above errors, be assured that your files have not been deleted, and no sections from the notebook were actually deleted, even though they may fail to sync temporarily.
Follow these steps to reset Office on your phone.
Back up all your local documents:
Documents saved locally to your phone or unsynced changes to OneNote pages will be deleted during the workaround process, so you’ll need to create a backup copy for all of your local documents.
Reset the Office Hub:
Once Office is reset, your files and notebooks should open properly from SkyDrive.
Omar Shahine Group Program Manager, SkyDrive.com
Last week, we shared our approach to designing a personal cloud storage service for billions of people. Today, we’re excited to release an upgrade to SkyDrive.com to address key feedback. You should expect to see the new SkyDrive release in the next few hours. Follow SkyDrive on Twitter so that you can be one of the first people to know when it’s live.
Here’s a video that quickly walks you through the changes to the service.
We have a long list of improvements that we set out to make to SkyDrive. While not all of the feedback we’ve received is addressed, we feel that this release is a big step forward—especially for the growing number of customers using SkyDrive to share and access Office documents.
As we look to the future, we know people increasingly think and work in a way that is “app-centric,” that is, they want something that just works from whatever application they are already using. So for example, when collaborating on a Word document, they want be able to share it in as few steps as possible – ideally without having to leave Word in order to set permissions or move it around to different folders. And they definitely don’t want to have to think about their folder structure or which email service their friends happen to use.
In the past, SkyDrive has made this difficult. We built the experience around discrete folders that were either private (“Documents”) or shared (“Class documents”). So how you wanted to share also dictated the way you organized your data. Also, sharing on SkyDrive was designed to work best when you shared files with people in your Windows Live network. Meanwhile, the most common scenario—sharing or collaborating with friends or colleagues across email services or other networks—was often a complex and unreliable process.
As a result, we rebuilt fundamental pieces of SkyDrive to simplify sharing and make it more app-centric, particularly for Office. For example, let’s say you’re working in Word Web App on a document in one of your private folders. Now you can Share from within the app and complete your task, without having to think about the structure of folders or subfolders. This is possible since SkyDrive now lets you share or permission individual files within a folder. This works for Office documents, photos, or any other type of file.
But we didn’t stop there. We also redesigned the sharing process – to make it much easier to share with people across email services and networks.
When you click Share in the SkyDrive info pane or from the File menu, you can now do a few things:
The sharing experience is one that only happens when you choose to share something. Everything on SkyDrive that you upload is private until you tell us otherwise.
As soon as we released the SkyDrive updates in June, we received a ton of feedback that you like the fast performance of the service, but doing many actions was slow and cumbersome.
In this release, a number of file management tasks are now “instant”. Now you can:
In addition to some of the sharing and file management features, we continue to look for ways we can take advantage of modern browsing technologies. Today we rely on Silverlight to provide rich upload support. In this release, we’re introducing drag and drop as a way to upload files and photos for browsers that support HTML5 File API like Internet Explorer 10, Google Chrome, Firefox and Safari. And while your files are uploading, you can continue to browse and use SkyDrive. You no longer have to sit and wait for uploads to complete.
We also have worked to make sure that SkyDrive works well on Internet Explorer 10. If you’re using the Windows 8 Developer Preview, you’ll notice that support for CSS3 animations works when you resize an album.
We’ve rebuilt and re-introduced photo slideshows in this release, and we feel that we’ve built a slideshow that’s faster and better than before.
We heard your feedback that it was hard to find photo captions, and that navigation was difficult. You can now click “View folder” to return to the folder of the album and see captions right below the photo.
We’ve also added support for touch APIs on Internet Explorer 10 and Mobile Safari so that you can use your fingers to swipe and navigate photos.
We recognize that a lot of our customers upload PDF files to SkyDrive, but to date we haven’t had a rich viewing experience for PDFs. In this release, when you click a PDF, we load it using whatever available PDF viewer your browser supports. This means that on IE, Firefox and Safari, PDFs will load in the browser if you have Adobe Acrobat installed. On Chrome, PDFs will load using Chrome’s native PDF viewer.
Some of our customers capture photos using their camera’s RAW format, and we support uploading and viewing RAW files from a number of camera manufacturers supported by the Microsoft Camera Codec Pack.
Here are a few of our favorites:
In the next few weeks, we’ll cover these features in a lot more depth, so come back for more updates. Also, I will be joining a few people on the SkyDrive team to field questions “live” tomorrow, 11/30, on Twitter from 10-12 p.m. PST. Just mention @SkyDrive in your question and follow us to participate in the conversation.
There are a lot of exciting changes coming to SkyDrive, and I can’t wait to share those with you.
SkyDrive has grown tremendously since we launched in 2007, and recently, we've made a number of updates to SkyDrive:
But we know we have a ways to go. As we look to the future and designing a personal cloud storage service for billions of people, it's important to reflect both on what's going on in the industry and the problems people are having with today’s approaches to the cloud.
There are a lot of companies innovating in personal cloud storage, and they are all doing so through a specific "lens" of what's important to them. We see three distinct categories:
Each category enables specific outcomes for its users. Each of these has its strengths, and we think that they’re all interesting.
While mainstream users are only just starting to embrace personal cloud storage, we’re seeing more demand as people buy and use more types of devices and need to access content across them.
As these trends continue, it’s interesting to look at how current approaches to personal cloud storage break down. We’ll look in particular at three groups of power users: college students, gadget fans, and photo enthusiasts. While they are on the leading edge today, they represent tomorrow’s mainstream.
College students work from multiple locations and collaborate frequently as part of class. Overwhelmingly, when students work on group projects, they start or finish in Microsoft Office on their PC or Mac. However, in between, almost 75% of students use more than one tool to share and collaborate including email, file clouds like Dropbox, and app clouds like Google Docs. (In fact, over 70% of Dropbox users also use Google Docs.) Using these different tools can lead to formatting loss, extra steps and versions, or just confusion, since each tool has its own limitations. For example, students can use limited online tools like Google Docs to work together, but when they share using Dropbox, they get file conflicts and need to have the right apps installed locally to view or edit docs.
These users have at least three devices including smartphones, PCs, and tablets. They want to easily access their content across their devices.
Device clouds like iCloud are useful – but not a perfect fit – since less than 10% of these people have devices all running the same operating system family. (If you include devices like e-readers and smart TVs or consoles, this percentage approaches zero.) As a result, these people often need to stitch together different cloud services to meet their needs.
We know we have users with hundreds of gigabytes of photos stored on their PCs. File clouds let them easily access and show off their photos from anywhere, but they can quickly hit cloud storage limits. Then they need to buy a cloud storage subscription, even if they have terabytes of cheap storage attached to their desktop PC. Also, since File clouds are primarily designed to replicate the file system online, they often lack rich photo sharing features that these people want.
Photo enthusiasts can also use app clouds designed for photos, but these have their own challenges. Often it’s difficult to upload files en masse without file system integration. Also, app clouds can be tied to specific social graphs. What if I want to share my full spring break album only with close friends while sharing certain pictures with Facebook friends? Do I need to upload pictures to multiple places?
The current approaches in the marketplace – including ours – have limitations. For their personal content, we think customers will choose the cloud that most seamlessly connects today’s files with tomorrow’s modern device and app experiences. What would this look like?
We sometimes hear from customers who want to use SkyDrive in key scenarios but encounter limitations. Over the years, we have built products that have been too complex. Often, we’ve asked customers to play "system integrator" across numerous of our services and numerous other cloud services. Here are a few things we’ve heard loud and clear:
We know we have a ways to go to deliver a cloud that seamlessly connects today’s files with tomorrow’s modern device and app experiences. We will measure our progress in meaningful releases that address feedback and bring us closer to our vision.
It will also take time to bring together people, content, and devices at scale. Below are key indicators we measure in this regard:
While aggregate indicators are useful, we’ll also look at how we are doing with power users like college students. Today, less than 10% of college students consider using SkyDrive to access or share docs.
We know that you have questions about what’s planned for SkyDrive. We listen closely to your feedback and are hard at work on our upcoming releases. Please follow us on Twitter for the latest news.
Omar Shahine & Mike Torres Group Program Managers for SkyDrive
Microsoft Outlook is the most popular email software in the world with more than 150 million active users. Hotmail is the largest email service in the world with more than 350 million active users. Outlook and Hotmail are better together, and our teams work closely to deliver a great connected experience for free to our millions of users with the Outlook Hotmail Connector. We’re continuously improving the Connector based on the feedback we hear from you, our shared users.
We hear often from Outlook users that they “live” every day in the product, and that they like to be able to manage both their work and personal email accounts in one place. The Connector lets them do this easily. Our shared customers can use Hotmail as a free, personal cloud service for Outlook side by side with the Exchange-based or other email accounts they use for work.
So why is Hotmail best for Outlook users? Here are a few of the things we hear that our customers find most useful.
Both Outlook and Hotmail support flagging emails to help you remember to act on them. If you flag a message in Outlook, it shows up as flagged in Hotmail and vice versa. Many people use their inbox like a “tasks” list, so flagging an email for follow up is a great feature. In Hotmail, you can quickly see all of your flagged tasks by clicking the “Flagged” Quick View in the left side navigation. In Outlook, you can make a search folder for Flagged emails to create your own quick view. Simply go to the “Folder” tab, click “New Search Folder,” and select “Mail flagged for follow up.”
Both Hotmail and Outlook also let you to right-click on a message to take actions like “reply,” “move,” “forward,” “mark as read,” “delete,” and more. And Hotmail now supports instant actions right in the message list to let you do things like moving email to a folder, sweeping messages, deleting, junking, and categorizing. Outlook has a similar feature called the Quick Access toolbar. Just right click on the ribbon menu in your inbox to enable it. These quick actions work with your Hotmail and your Outlook accounts.
WiFi and 3G connections are nearly ubiquitous today, but there are still times when no connection is available. When you travel, for instance, you may still want to be able to access your mail, calendar, and contacts even if there’s no connection available. You can simply sync your Hotmail data before you board, and the updated information will be available in Outlook.
Hotmail and Outlook both support multiple calendars. You can access and manage all your Hotmail calendars in Outlook, including any public calendars (like the ones available at iCalShare.com) and your shared calendars. We hear from our users that shared calendars are most often used for family scheduling. With the Connector, you can see all your calendars, including those shared family calendars, side by side or overlaid with your other Outlook calendars, like those that you use for work.
Work calendar side-by-side in Outlook with shared family calendar from Hotmail
Work calendar overlaid in Outlook with shared family calendar from Hotmail
We make sure to keep your Hotmail and Exchange-based data separate in Outlook, but you can easily drag and drop content between them. For example, we know that most of our users receive personal email in their work accounts sometimes. With the Connector, you can just drag those messages into your Hotmail inbox. You can do the same with personal contacts, dragging them from Hotmail into Exchange to make sure you have a backup. You can also drag an email into your Hotmail calendar in order to maintain all the email information in the description field. You can even drag and drop events from one calendar to another. Let’s say you have to take a trip for work. You can drag your travel itinerary from your Exchange calendar into, say, a Hotmail shared family calendar. This copies the event so your significant other can see it anywhere he or she accesses Hotmail calendar. And with the new Hotmail calendar change notification feature, unique to Hotmail, anyone sharing a calendar automatically gets an email whenever you add or edit something on that shared calendar.
We know that many Outlook customers use email rules to automatically highlight, categorize, or file messages. With the Connector, you can also run Outlook rules on your Hotmail messages. For instance, you can have a rule set up in Outlook to automatically highlight any email that is sent only to you. When a message addressed just to you arrives, even if it’s sent to your Hotmail account, Outlook highlights it for you. That way, you know you likely need to act on that message more quickly than to a message that has been sent to lots of people at once. Rules are incredibly powerful and are nearly infinite in the ways you can combine them to manage your mail in ways that work just for you. The rules you’ve set up in Outlook will run on your Hotmail inbox when Outlook is running, but you can also set up rules in Hotmail itself. Give ‘em a try. In Hotmail, just go to Options, under your name in the header, and select “Rules for sorting messages.” In Outlook, select the Rules folder on the Home tab.
We hear often from our users that most like to keep their work and personal email separate. Using the Connector, you can start an email in Outlook and send it from any of your accounts. If you select your Hotmail account, the mail is sent via the Hotmail servers. If you select your work or other account, it’s sent through Exchange or the appropriate server. Simply select the “From” button in Outlook and you can select the account from which to send.
Some people are mail “pilers,” some are “filers,” and some are “deleters.” Last year, we shared information about the breakdown of these types of users we see in Hotmail. More than 25% of Hotmail inboxes are managed by “filers.” Both Outlook and Hotmail support folders and subfolders for you filers out there, so you can stay organized and keep your inbox streamlined. Outlook syncs all of your Hotmail folders, and you can even create new Hotmail folders and subfolders from within Outlook. You can drag and drop emails into them, and the folders will automatically sync to any location where you access Hotmail, whether it’s the web, your smart phone, Outlook on your home computer, or anywhere else. You can even drag email from other accounts, like an Exchange account for work, into Hotmail and vice versa.
We are continuously making improvements to reduce junk mail and keep you safe. Outlook 2010 and Hotmail keep your Safe Senders, Blocked Senders, and Safe Recipient lists synchronized to ensure that the good mail gets through and the bad mail doesn’t. In Hotmail, you can right-click a message and select “Junk,” select messages and click “Junk” in the header navigation, or select “Junk” from the reply menu.
In Outlook, you can click “Junk” in the header or right click a message to Junk the mail and block the sender.
For those of you using the Outlook Connector, we’d like to hear your favorite features. Share your tips and tricks, and suggestions for feature improvements! If you’re not using the Connector yet, read on…
If you haven’t already given it a try, using all of these features is a snap. Just download the Hotmail Outlook Connector and follow the quick installation steps. The Connector will walk you through the process. You need to be a Hotmail user already, so if you’re not, go to Hotmail.com to sign up. And if you’re not an Outlook user, you can buy it or try it here.
Hotmail and Outlook are made for each other, and we’re continuously improving both. If you’re an Outlook user, you should be using Hotmail, too. Switching to Hotmail is easy. You can learn more about how to switch here.
Dick Craddock Group Program Manager, Hotmail
In the past, we’ve talked about how SkyDrive is more than just a place to store your files. While you can put any file in your SkyDrive and access it from anywhere, SkyDrive is also a platform for apps like Microsoft OneNote 2010 to build on. The ubiquity of SkyDrive means that if you’re using OneNote 2010 with SkyDrive, your notebooks will be available from wherever you are and will be accessible via SkyDrive.com, your Windows Phone, your PC with OneNote 2010, and even your iPhone.
When you use OneNote with SkyDrive across all your different devices, you’ll notice that your notebooks are always up-to-date on whichever device you happen to be using. OneNote is always working behind the scenes to make this seamless from one device to the next.
If you want to see a real-world example, this national television ad shows how OneNote with SkyDrive makes it easier to both work across devices and share with others.
And here’s how it actually works behind the scenes:
Just after the commercial aired, Long Zheng wanted to see for himself if using OneNote with SkyDrive would work as advertised – so he followed everything step-by-step:
Upon seeing the latest “Keep Shopping” commercial, Rafael Rivera and I decided to put this to the test. Following the steps illustrated, we were able to replicate the same shopping list experience using OneNote Mobile and the desktop app, continents apart. Not only was the scenario reproducible but it’s also practical to a lot of people, including enthusiasts like ourselves.
As we’ve made updates to OneNote on the web, on the iPhone and on Windows Phone, more people are discovering the benefits of syncing notes to SkyDrive for easy access anywhere. And now it’s a lot easier for you to sync your notes back to OneNote 2010 on your PC.
Today, the OneNote team has released a free, optional update for OneNote 2010. Improvements include a new Open from Web feature and updates to the synchronization interface, so you always know what’s happening with your notebook.
Check out the update to OneNote 2010 for SkyDrive
Thanks and keep the feedback on OneNote and SkyDrive coming!
Mike Torres Group Program Manager, SkyDrive Devices and Roaming