First off: I'm aware that the fault here may not be entirely down to Mesh (i.e. it could be other programmers poor techniques or simply asking something too tough to do...)
I love Mesh, especially the ability to remote onto my other PCs (I've used RDC and it's handy, but this takes it further in most cases).
However, it does seem to have a bit of a flaw, especially when used when certain apps are running on the remote PC. They tend to be graphically rich, and I appreciate that this therefore creates a lot of data to transfer... the issue is that Mesh seems to get stuck up trying to draw it all - it slows to a crawl to draw some fairly non-critical animation of a control. Yes, I do realise it'd be hard to figure out what was key and what was non-critical, but often it seems to get so far behind that it's useless - if you're that far behind "now" on the remote PC, you should skip a bit to catch up. Oddly enough, the animation of the Live Mesh Notifier box thing (that pops up from the System Tray) often has this problem. I don't think it's down to internet connection speed, nor PC performance (it affects all my PCs which are of varying spec). It's terrible in Windows Photo Gallery too.
On a few annoying times, I've effectively got my connection paralysed by accidentally starting something like a video file. Hats off that Mesh tries to play it (I'd prefer it tried than said "you can't do this, I'll black out the screen, like RDC does sometimes), but it can take over 30 seconds to wrestly control back.
I do find it odd that this also occurs when I'm remoting between PCs that are on the same subnet - you'd expect the throughput would be fantastic - but if anything these PCs are as slow responding or maybe even worse (that's just my feeling). I'm not 100% familiar with the architecture, but I'm sure some data needs to be passed up to the Mesh cloud (i.e. to authenticate I should be able to remote this particular PC) but after that's all done, why don't things pass directly PC to PC?) The more "Vista" the software the worse it is. I suppose I could switch back to the basic Windows look, but I'd rather not.
We are continuing to work to make Live Mesh Remote Desktop better; many others have expressed similar dissatisfaction with the speed of remote connections, and we're working on ways to improve this. For example, right now Live Mesh Remote Desktop does not take advantage (as you note) of direct P2P connections, but we are planning to have an update soon that will allow it to do so, which will drastically increase performance in P2P situations.
Thanks for being patient with us as we work to make Live Mesh better.
Ben.
Proposed as answer byBen [Live Mesh]Monday, September 29, 2008 11:23 PM
Marked as answer byNeil StokerTuesday, September 30, 2008 8:01 AM
We are continuing to work to make Live Mesh Remote Desktop better; many others have expressed similar dissatisfaction with the speed of remote connections, and we're working on ways to improve this. For example, right now Live Mesh Remote Desktop does not take advantage (as you note) of direct P2P connections, but we are planning to have an update soon that will allow it to do so, which will drastically increase performance in P2P situations.
Thanks for being patient with us as we work to make Live Mesh better.
Ben.
Proposed as answer byBen [Live Mesh]Monday, September 29, 2008 11:23 PM
Marked as answer byNeil StokerTuesday, September 30, 2008 8:01 AM
I so want to believe AND use mesh but the remote control is not usable. If you use gotomypc it FLIES compared to mesh remote control. the vision, ability and promise of mesh is HUGE... the implementation of the remote control... SUCKS. I do not want to be divisive or rude, I am just telling the truth. Personally I think that feature performs SO POORLY that you should take it OUT of the product as it is a failure a remote control implementation. It makes it cheesy and klunky.I I think you should just use it as a way to take snapshots of a remote desktop.
Thanks for trying Live Mesh. You are entitled to your opinions, of course. Personally, I like the RD implementation in Live Mesh very much, though there are things that need improvement. If you like GoToMyPC, then by all means contiue using that. You can use the other functionality of Live Mesh.
It is a beta, and I know that there is much work to be done.
-steveMicrosoft MVP Windows Live / Windows Live OneCare & Live Mesh Forum Moderator
The only workaround I have found is to use FireFox as my browser and use the FlashBlock add-in. It will show the Flash logo in its place. You can click on a flash graphic if you want to see it. Makes a world of difference, even when browsing in general, not just through Mesh. I kick myself when I navigate to a site like NewEgg.com that has a fancy Flash banner and I'm in IE, not Firefox.
I just resolve to make a couple of clicks (to close the window or make another one pop-up), then just let it do its thing... until I get control back.
I imagine it's a flaw in Flash that doesn't use an alternate thread or doesn't relinquish control momentarily to allow you to break in and do something else. There should be a "Stop" or ability to un-check the "Loop" option in a right-click menu as in some other animation plug-ins. I'm sure the advertisers who rely on those eye-catching (and CPU trapping) graphics wouldn't want you to stop the animation.
I have seen one site that, as the flash played, it would momentarily pause and show something else on the screen (other boxes under the main animation). Unfortunately, the control still stayed with that web-page and I was locked out until it all finished. All that tells me is that Flash does allow the programmer to break up the animation and do other things. Whether it will allow the programmer to insert breaks so other apps can steal the focus, I don't know. It does seem "rude" of them.
In the early days, some sites offered a "Non-Flash" or low-bandwidth version, but I haven't seen one in a long time.
Next, I might check IE settings to "uncheck" the "automatically play animations" option.
