Microsoft Unveils Windows 7 File-Sharing Beta 230
nandemoari writes "Microsoft yesterday released a trial version of new file-sharing software intended for use with its upcoming and highly-anticipated operating system.
The new software allows PC users to swap files with the computers of friends, family, and trusted colleagues along safe, secure channels. Dubbed 'Windows Live ID Sign-in Assistant 6.5,' the beta connects the Windows Live IDs of individual users with a Windows 7 account, essentially building a secure link between data stored on a hard drive and information accessible via Windows Live online."
Clever, actually (Score:5, Interesting)
Live? (Score:3, Interesting)
Hey, if it can associate information with Windows Live accounts, can it also associate information with Xbox Live accounts? As far as I know, they all use the same MS Passport username and password.
How does the new KDE 4.2 do this? (Score:5, Interesting)
Anyone know how the new KDE 4.2 handles file sharing with other KDE 4.2 desktop environments? The file sharing in Windows 95 was pretty straight forward. Windows 98, not so much. Windows XP was not so easy. It's my hope that Windows 7 will be straight forward.
I think file sharing had a bug within Windows XP SP2 because until on edited the registry, things just did not work.
Now before I get labled as a troll, the registry setting I am talking about is this:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Lsa {change restrictanonymous to 0 }
Then it worked.
That's really cool (Score:3, Interesting)
Lemee see. Ill go and create a FUSE driver that utilizes this service. Now, Ill point this service at GPG files.
Gee golly Whillikers! You cant read anything I have. Nice though. Encrypted storage dump you can share. Just trade keys out of band, say thorough Gmail.
Anything like Windows Live Sync? (Score:5, Interesting)
I wonder if this will be anything like Windows Live Sync, which is quite useful.
Live Sync doesn't have any sort of DRM as far as I'm aware, but I believe there are limits on file size and total number of files. In any case, I use it to keep several hundred documents synced transparently between my XP desktop and OS X laptop.
Re:Product naming, again (Score:2, Interesting)
Dubbed "Windows Live ID Sign-in Assistant 6.5,"
Apple would've called it "iShare" or something else friendly and inviting. Who does MS hire to come up with those horrid, unwieldy names?
Considering it can go by the 'Windows LISA', Apple may have something to talk about.
Though their Lisa was a failure...
Re:They omitted something... (Score:5, Interesting)
They probably will. And that's probably the whole point. But not for the reason you think.
Microsoft is a company in trouble. It's main product, its flagship OS, is not selling a well as it might hope. For the first time in years it is faced with real and credible competition from both Apple and Canonical. It needs to stay competitive and its current liaisons with media companies are not helping it do that.
Culture has changed. File sharing is a fact of life for the majority of PC users. People share their files, not only documents and music, but also video files. Apple and Canonical have responded by giving users better tools and greater freedom with their files. Microsoft has responded by locking its systems down, putting barriers in the way of people trying to us their PCs.
But culture has changed. People want to transfer files between the now multiple machines and accounts in their homes. They want to show other people the files on their drives. Microsoft is waking up to this fact, not because they want to, but because in this day and age and culture, they have to.
Microsoft, desperate to get itself into the living room, has been caving into the media industry for years now. But it's still not in the living room, aside from the Xbox console, which does not need the media industry to get there. How has Microsoft, as a company, made profit by pandering to these outside interests? In ten years of compromises, what benefit has Microsoft seen to the restrictions it has placed in its operating system? As open alternatives replace Microsoft products in this domain (Bitorrent/VLC/Boxee), it's clear that people are voting with their feet, and are choosing players and distribution methods that just do what they want them to do, without telling them that they can't.
The media companies will kick and buck and scream and roar over this. It's an anathema to their world view, where users have only limited, and in some cases temporary, control and access over their files. But Microsoft has probably stopped listening, despite their now large ties to the entertainment industry. Times are getting tough, and with alternatives out there, they cannot afford Windows to be laden down with artificial barriers introduced at the behest of third parties.
Re:They omitted something... (Score:5, Interesting)
You may be a bit ahead of the times in your prediction, but I believe you're close. But that's not what I wanted to comment on. I wanted to comment on this:
For the first time in years it is faced with real and credible competition from both Apple and Canonical.
I very much disagree with this. Microsoft isn't faced with competition from Canonical. They're faced with competition from Linux; Canonical may be a "symptom" of this, but they're not the real competition. Right now, Canonical's got (arguably) the best, most usable UI for new users, thus they have some of the largest user base. If Canonical gets destroyed by Microsoft and Ubuntu ceases to exist, there will be a huge development influx into other distros, probably concentrating on either Fedora or one of the many Ubuntu spin-offs. The problem that MS is facing is that desktop Linux is somewhat of a hydra. They've managed against it thus far is really just because (continuing the metaphor) it took a while to grow. The nature of open sources licenses mean that it will be incredibly easy for "modern desktop Linux" to survive the death of their current front-runner.
Now I don't think Microsoft's death is imminent. They've got enough cash reserves and enough fingers in enough pies that they won't die anytime soon. But they are facing a serious threat, one that thus far they've been powerless to stop the growth of. Apple can be destroyed. Apple is kept at bay by Microsoft quite easily: until iWork is a drop-in replacement, Microsoft holds the upper hand in their relationship. (This is, I suspect, why Apple has been putting a substantial amount of development resources into the creation of a functional equivalent to Microsoft Office. As long as a majority of their consumer user-base depends on a Microsoft product, Apple can't afford to compete too directly with Microsoft.) Linux has no such Achilles' heel. The best Microsoft has against Linux is "trusted computing", but (thus far) manufacturers have essentially said "why bother" to Microsoft's pushes for it. Without widespread hardware lock-in, and without a clear financial target, Linux won't be easy for Microsoft to kill.
Nothing at all like Live Sync (Score:4, Interesting)
Because it doesn't actually do sharing at all. As usual, TFS is half crap and Taco didn't RTFA. A better article is here [arstechnica.com].
All it does is associate your Live ID with your login - that's why they call it Sign-in Assistant instead of iShare. It enables other [potential] apps to e.g. share files, amongst other things, but there's no functionality like that in this MS release.
What you can do is e.g. set up a Win7 Homegroup (read: private network), share drives/folders in the usual way, and allow only specified Live IDs access (as opposed to allowing local or domain accounts access). The only new part here is auto-sign-in to your Live ID to make this all more seamless.