SkyDrive Desktop app updated, brings back the ghost of Live Mesh

Microsoft has announced some minor updates to their SkyDrive desktop app for Windows and Mac, with the following new features:

• SkyDrive for Windows desktop will power a new feature in the upcoming Windows 8 Release Preview, which will allow, from the Windows 8 Photos app, a user to fetch photos stored on other PCs that has SkyDrive installed – no matter where you are or how many terabytes of photos you have stored on the PC you are accessing.
• SkyDrive for OS X Lion no longer shows an app icon in the dock when running.
• The SkyDrive folder now updates more quickly and reliably when changes are made on other devices, including SkyDrive.com.
• The limit on the number of total files in the SkyDrive folder created by the apps has been raised from 150,000 to a 10 million.
• Many smaller bug fixes to improve overall reliability.

The first item is of course most interesting, as it involves PC to PC transfer of files, specifically of photos, without using the cloud storage intermediary, which was of course one of the hallmark features of Live Mesh. Of course Live Mesh allowed  P2P synching, while this appears to be only a one-time transfer, but even adding this simple feature implied more P2P developments are on the way.

Microsoft interestingly mentions Mesh in passing, saying they already have the SkyDrive client installed on more devices than they ever had Mesh installs, suggesting the simpler way forward was the winning route.

The new SkyDrive version number is 16.4.4111.0525. The update will be pushed out to all users over the next week.

Read more at Microsoft here.