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    I'm considering using Live Mesh for our business.  We have about 100 machines and am wondering if it is possible to:

    Create multiple meshes, and can you create different groups within a mesh?

    How many computers or devices can you have connected to a mesh?

    With remote desktop how can you adjust the screen size?  When I remotely connected to another computer, the other computer's desktop was pushed to the left side of the screen. 
    Thursday, July 9, 2009 6:51 PM

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    The first thing that I would note is that Live Mesh is a beta and that means that things can be broken. Bugs exist.

    I don't know what you mean by groups.

    When you install Live Mesh on a device, you log in with a LiveID that is enabled for Live Mesh. You then designate the folders that you wish to sync between devices in the Mesh and with the Live Desktop (optionally). You can invite other Live Mesh users to share a folder.

    You can connect to other devices in the Mesh using Remote Desktop functionality, but that means that the devices need to have been added to your Mesh - defined by your LiveID.

    I don't know the limit for devices, but I don't think it would be manageable to have more than a dozen or so machines in a Live Mesh with the same LiveID.

    Resizing the remote desktop is done by changing the view on the local machine to full screen or windowed and resizing the window as desired. This can be an issue if the resolution on the local machine is lower than the remote machine - you get the squashed look, even at full screen on the local machine.

    What would your use of Live Mesh in the business environment be?

    -steve
    Microsoft MVP Windows Live / Windows Live OneCare, Live Mesh, & MS Security Essentials Forums Moderator
    Thursday, July 9, 2009 6:58 PM
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    The first thing that I would note is that Live Mesh is a beta and that means that things can be broken. Bugs exist.

    I don't know what you mean by groups.

    When you install Live Mesh on a device, you log in with a LiveID that is enabled for Live Mesh. You then designate the folders that you wish to sync between devices in the Mesh and with the Live Desktop (optionally). You can invite other Live Mesh users to share a folder.

    You can connect to other devices in the Mesh using Remote Desktop functionality, but that means that the devices need to have been added to your Mesh - defined by your LiveID.

    I don't know the limit for devices, but I don't think it would be manageable to have more than a dozen or so machines in a Live Mesh with the same LiveID.

    Resizing the remote desktop is done by changing the view on the local machine to full screen or windowed and resizing the window as desired. This can be an issue if the resolution on the local machine is lower than the remote machine - you get the squashed look, even at full screen on the local machine.

    What would your use of Live Mesh in the business environment be?

    -steve
    Microsoft MVP Windows Live / Windows Live OneCare, Live Mesh, & MS Security Essentials Forums Moderator
    Thursday, July 9, 2009 6:58 PM
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    Thanks for your response Steve.  We would like to try Live Mesh with our executives who are not always in the building.  They would need to access files, and applications from their computers at work from home for example. 

    Also, we have a lot of different departments that we would like to have using different devices as well in order to share files and folders.  Would it be best if we create a new Live ID for each department and add each device for that department.  Could another mesh, mesh with another mesh?

    Are there any limitations legally as to how you can use Live Mesh?  Size for instance?
    Thursday, July 9, 2009 8:14 PM
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    I'll try to come up with a detailed answer for how you might set this up tomorrow for you, but I'll answer the last question now - there are no limitations on size. Each user needs to agree to the licensing terms when signing up and installing the software, which is fairly normal. And, the terms specifically refer to the files that can't be synchronized - copyright violations, offensive material, and the like. Other than that, no restrictions that I'm aware of.
    I will refer back to my first statement, though - it is a beta program, in a beta environment. Although they work really hard to keep things running smoothly, I would not want to risk any critical data to it and there is no support. The program and environment will change - features may be added or removed, etc.
    -steve
    Microsoft MVP Windows Live / Windows Live OneCare, Live Mesh, & MS Security Essentials Forums Moderator
    Thursday, July 9, 2009 9:32 PM
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    Depending on what you actually want to share and how, one solution would be as follows:

    Create a LiveID for each department.
    Sign each LiveID up for Live Mesh.
    Install Live Mesh on each PC and use the LiveID for the department to sign in on each machine.
    Configure the folders that you wish to share within that department on one or more PCs in the mesh and decide if you only want to share Peer to Peer or also to the Live Desktop on the web. The current limit on the Live Desktop sync is 5 gigs.
    If you wish to share a folder or folders between departments, invite the other LiveID(s) to share those folders.

    Configuring the local location of the shared fodlers is the same no matter what you decide. When the shared folder is offered to the other PCs in the Mesh, you can configure it to point to an existing folder or to a new folder. If you choose an existing folder, this will merge the contents with the Mesh.

    To use Remote Desktop, you would need to sign into Live Mesh on a PC using the department LiveID and you would then be presented with the machines/devices that are in that department Mesh. Note that signing into Live Mesh from the Live Desktop is probably the best way to accomplish this lest you now make the PC you are connecting from a member of the department mesh and be offered all shared folders. You can use the Live Mesh client and sign in, then choose not to sync the department Mesh folders with that device. In effect, you'd make the machine you are using for Remote Desktop via the client a member of multiple meshes, but not sync data with all of them.

    I will once again caution you that this is a beta and that things can go awry, so be sure to have a backup of critical data stored outside of the meshed folders.

    -steve
    Microsoft MVP Windows Live / Windows Live OneCare, Live Mesh, & MS Security Essentials Forums Moderator
    Friday, July 10, 2009 12:22 PM
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    Hi Stephen,
    My situation is somewhat similar to Brian, where i see an opportunity to use Live Mesh as part of our commercial application. Our application requires files to be syncronized/transferred between a shop and a headoffice. We are thinking about use Live Mesh to automatically sync the files from the shop to the headoffice. Alternatively, we could write a service to grab the file and use ftp to upload it to the ftp hosting server and write a similar software at the headoffice to download the file from ftp. Using Live Mesh would spare us from writing this two programs since it would do the syncronization automatically. The only concern we have is that our application is a commercial application and we do not wish break any terms of use and licensing restriction by using it in a commercial scenariou. We had a look at the terms of use on the LiveMesh website but it specifies the terms of use with regards to Live Services and not specifically in relation to LiveMesh alone.
    Would you be able to throw some light on this. We have been trying to make contact with somebody in Microsoft to clear this concern.
    Any thoughts on this issue would be really appreciated.

    Many Thanks
    Sharad
    Thursday, July 30, 2009 8:37 AM
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    If you are developing a commercial application, I don't think that you can package Live Mesh as part of your application. You can, however, provide guidance for people to use a service live Live Mesh or Live Sync to synchronize files using a LiveID.
    I would once again caution you that this service is still beta. Live Sync is a released product - http://sync.live.com
    If you want to build upon the platform that supports Live Mesh, providing functionality for sync without using the Live Mesh client, you may want to look into the Live Framework stuff:

     

    Live Framework Developer forums:

    http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/liveframework/threads/

     

    Live Services Developer portal:

    http://dev.live.com/liveframework/


    -steve 
    Microsoft MVP Windows Live / Windows Live OneCare, Live Mesh, & MS Security Essentials Forums Moderator
    Thursday, July 30, 2009 12:41 PM
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    hi Steve,
    Thankyou for you response. We are not planning to package Live Mesh as part of our application. Like you said, we would like to utilize the Live Mesh service to sync files generated by our application. Our application would generate the required files on the Live mesh folder and we would like to use Live Mesh service to sync the files to the HeadOffice. We would like to know would we be breaking any licensing terms or conditions of use.
    As per your response, it seems like there should not be any issue in using the Live Mesh service to sync files as part of our commercial application.

    regards
    sharad
    Wednesday, August 5, 2009 10:03 AM
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    I don't believe that there would be any issue, but if you are going to advise people to install and use Live Mesh, I'd be wary of doing so while it is in beta.
    -steve
    Microsoft MVP Windows Live / Windows Live OneCare, Live Mesh, & MS Security Essentials Forums Moderator
    Wednesday, August 5, 2009 12:32 PM
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    Steve,
    I appreciate your response. I am very much aware that Live Mesh is in beta, but the information we are going to sync is not critical and if lost is not going to be an issue. Also, this is as a short term measure till we find other alternative as an integrated solution.

    many thanks for your help
    sharad
    Wednesday, August 5, 2009 1:53 PM
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    You're very welcome and good luck.
    -steve
    Microsoft MVP Windows Live / Windows Live OneCare, Live Mesh, & MS Security Essentials Forums Moderator
    Thursday, August 6, 2009 12:36 AM
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