UPDATE April 22, 2009: Good news! These favorites features are now available everywhere SkyDrive is.*
If you made me—but please don't make me—pick the one aspect of Windows Live I get the most excited about with the least amount of prompting, it's what Windows Live can do with your Internet Explorer favorites. While I advocate on behalf of them, I will try to keep my enthusiasm to a dull roar, because a showy display is not The Favorites Way. To the contrary, this aspect of Windows Live is so low-key that you might never have noticed it, or you might have poked it a few times after installing Windows Live Toolbar, found it didn't do anything flashy, and forgotten all about it.
Are you social? Broadcast and share your faves
There are a few sites I return to again and again that my pals would also be interested in. Rather than send Yet Another E-mail with Yet Another Hyperlink That They Will Lose, I add them to my shared favorites using the Share button on Windows Live Toolbar.
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| I click the Share button to add a new shared favorite |
If my pals happen to be paying attention to what's new, they'll notice that I've shared a couple of favorites recently.
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| My network sees that I shared some favorites |
If they aren't paying attention, they can still see what I've shared anytime in my Shared favorites folder on SkyDrive.
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| The people in my network can see my Shared favorites on SkyDrive |
You automatically have two favorites folders on SkyDrive already: Shared favorites (which is shared with your network by default) and Favorites (which is for your own eyes only). If I set up Toolbar to sync my favorites , all of my personal favorites are on my SkyDrive, all the time, in my personal Favorites folder. This comes in handy when I use a public or shared computer. So let's talk about setting up your favorites to sync.
Got better things to do than compulsively organize your web links? Favorites sync has your back.
I love, love, love favorites sync on Windows Live Toolbar because I love, love, love collecting favorites and then completely ignoring them. All I want is for them to be exactly the same on every computer I use, all the time, without me having to organize them more than once. Is that too much to ask? Toolbar says nope, it's not.
It's just a matter of getting this set up to do it automagically. If you haven't set up favorites sync yet, you'll see a Favorites Sync icon on Windows Live Toolbar.
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| Click the icon to start the wizard to set up sync |
Just click this icon and follow the steps shown on the screen to get everything set up. Do this on each computer where you use Internet Explorer (and sign in with the same Windows Live ID), and those favorites will always be the same.
If you have lots and lots of favorites, the first time you sync it may take a few hours for all of them to sync up. After that, they’ll sync every 90 minutes, or every time you change your favorites in Internet Explorer.
If you've set sync up once, that icon goes away. If you set up sync, turn it off, and want to turn it back on, right-click the toolbar, and then click Toolbar Options.
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| Right-click Windows Live Toolbar to check or change your sync settings |
When the Options window appears, click Sync your favorites and see what you get. If you see a button that says Start Automatic Sync, that means you—accidentally, I'm sure—turned sync off and need to turn it on again by clicking the button. If the button says Stop Automatic Sync, that means sync is on. Leave everything alone.
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| Click the button to start sync again. Do it now! Hurry! |
You can start and stop sync anytime, but why would you want to? Having your favorites sync automatically keeps them occupied and frees up your obsessive-compulsive organizing time for something Windows Live can't help you with, like endlessly refolding and restacking your T-shirt collection by color, fiber, state of wear, person you were dating during purchase … or is that just me?
- Lisa Andrews, OCD editor, Windows Live team
* Those places are: Arabia, South Arabia, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, China, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong SAR, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Korea, Latvia, Lithuania, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, Ukraine, United States, United Kingdom, and Vietnam.
