Recently we covered mapping Skydrive to a drive letter in Windows 7 using Office 2010. Although the process is very simple, right after posting the How-To a Groovy reader asked the question:
“I would like to have SkyDrive in ‘My Computer’ but I’m not using Windows Office 2010… Is there any other way to get this done, not using Windows Office?”
Um yeah, that’s a good point. The good news is, I have a good answer! You don’t need Office 2010 to Map a Windows Live Skydrive to your Windows 7 PC! Here, let me show you how!
How To Mount Skydrive To A Drive Letter Without Using Windows Office
1. Click the Windows Start Menu Orb and then Right-Click Computer and Select Map network drive…
2. In the Folder line, Type or Paste in the following*:
\docs.live.net@SSL##onlineIDnumber##^2Public
Once you’ve typed it in, leave this window open and start up your internet browser.
*Note: To connect to My Documents instead, change ^2Public to ^2Documents
3. In your browser visit http://skydrive.live.com/ and sign-in. Once you’ve logged in the URL in the address bar should change to a cid-######.skydrive.live.com format. Copy the # part after cid-.
Example: In http://cid-5db77efa3c.skydrive.live.com/ copy only “ 5db77efa3c “
4. Paste and replace the number from the skydrive URL over the text that says ##onlineIDnumber##.
Example: My Folder line would now read “ \docs.live.net@SSL5db77efa3c^2Public “
Once you’re ready, Click Finish to connect.
5. You’ll be prompted for a username and password. Type in your Windows Live credentials and Click OK.
Did it work? If you followed the directions above you should now have direct access to your Skydrive and we didn’t even need to use Microsoft Office 2010 to do it!
Stuck? Thoughts, questions?? Drop a comment below and you may want to subscribe to the free groovyPost RSS feed for daily computer-related how-to, tips, and news!
This is sweet. BTW – I tried to login using your ID to hack ya heheh but I needed your PW.
You’d need my pw, and my REAL id #. I’m glad it works for you though!
I have been trying all these things to map my skydrive and i keep getting a windows can not access error. i have tried on windows 7 laptop and windows vista pc.
any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Does this work in Windows XP SP2. If not please give a solution for XP SP2 too.
Thanks
I don’t see why it wouldn’t work in Windows XP, the only difference would be the location of “Map A Network Drive” which would be in one of the File menus at the top once you open My Computer.
And why use SP2? Get SP3!… or upgrade to Win 7.
I have done this in Windows XP but it is VERY SLOWWWWWWWWW …
\\vzliws.docs.live.net\\
I get this message:
Error Code: 0×90070035
The network path was not found.
Using Windows 7.
What does this mean?
Does not work on win7 either.
@Andrew,
Just retested it using Windows 7 Home Edition (64-bit) and it works. However I have the Windows Live Online ID Provider Installed
Not sure if that makes a difference, I’ll uninstall it and give it a shot.
Any outcome?
Oops, forgot to update.
Yeah it still works without the online id provider.
Hi, I tried this, but when I follow the steps and finally click on finish, it asks me to log in twice, and then it says no access to “\\docs.live.net@SSL\eb2af38eb77672ad\^2Documenten”
and in details it says “errorcode 0×80070043 can’t find networkname” (freely translated from dutch ….. )
Since I don’t have a folder called public I used a folder called ‘Documenten’ and I also used the right username and password of my hotmail account to log in, so I don’t know what the problem might be.
any suggestions would be appreciated
thanks!
I’ve tried to network map Skydrive over and over, using this method and all others that I’ve read about on the Web, and it NEVER works. It always asks me for my username and password, which I enter correctly, then after about 10 seconds it again asks for my username and password. It never accepts my username and password, even though I know I am inputting it correctly as I have logged into my Skydrive Web account millions of times before.
This is so frustrating. I even tried turning off Windows firewall, thinking that was the problem. To no avail. Any ideas/suggestions would be appreciated!
I found the solution to my problem. I had to uncheck the “automatically detect settings” box within the IE browser (Internet Options, Connections tab, LAN settings).
I’m very happy now! Hope this helps anyone else facing this issue.
Indeed, this solved my problem too!
Does not work for me, stuck in a loop asking for may password. I enter the correct password, and the password dialog box comes up again. But hey this is the farthest I’ve ever gotten so the OP must be on the right track – other suggestions culled from the web failed miserably.
Is it possible to mount the whole drive and not individual folders?
create a SkyDrive folder and put all your subfolders below that one and map to it …
Also stuck in a loop asking for login and password.
Just re-tested it, you might need to Click the box “Login using different credentials.”
In both password boxes that appear, type in your account@live.com for username and the password you use for that account.
After you click connect the connection may look like it is still connecting, but it will actually be connected. Go to My Computer and you will see it as the drive letter you assigned to the mount.
Why don’t you just re-write this thing. You obviously left a lot to be desired.
IT WORKS!… but BOY it’s SLOOOOOOW….
i’m my 7 x64 upload speed is……………….. 15.8KB/second
thanks anyway for great insight, much appreciated!
This maps a drive to my public folder. I don’t want the documents that I upload to be publicly available so I changed “^2Public” to “^2Documents”.
anyone had succes connecting in linux?
I tried this in windows xp sp2 and right after typing in the folder and clicking finish it says ” The mapped network drive could not be created because the following error has occured: The specified server cannot perform the requested operation.”
I’m also stuck in password loop
It worked for me on Win 7 only after I took out the ^2. I also had to click “Connect using different credentials”.
Mapping a drive letter on your PC won’t magically make your broadband run faster.
Thanks for the tip.
Im on Win7 and This worked. I tried everything above his comments. Thanks
I had trouble getting this working so I created a blog entry here with all the steps I needed to take:
http://blog.itinc.biz/2010/12/how-to-map-driver-to-your-skydrive.html
Thnx for the link – btw – nice blog. Nice and clean!
The problem lies with Microsoft. Skydrive is not meant for real use. You can upload folders full of Word and Excel files but little else.
I tried to upload some fonts. It said the font files were too big. I changed the font file’s extension to .doc. They uploaded easily. I then changed the extensions back to .otf. Skydrive allowed this.
I wasn’t even able to upload .jpg files into the Photos mapped drive. Very odd.
To Colo, if this works successfully for other people, how is it Microsoft’s fault that you cant use it successfully?
I was able to mount my Documents folder using this tip, but not my Public folder.
Then I noticed that, when I was logged into the Skydrive website, files in my “My Documents” folder had /.Documents/ in the URL, whereas files in my Public folder had /Public/ in the URL. I hazarded a guess that the ^2 in ^2Documents represented the period and tried to mount my Public folder with /Public instead of /^2Public.
Bingo!
Thanks for the help.
I am having trouble with with the .jpgs, too. Is there a way around this? Help!
OK for a concise version that works in 30 seconds
1. http://skydrivesimpleviewer.codeplex.com/ ..unzip the program + dll to c:\ and run from command line
2. copy paste the dumped url into your map network drive folder path
3. replace any ‘/’ forward slashes with ‘\’ back slashes
4. Click finish enter your user/pass and its done
also in Win7.. go to Internet options -> Local Intranet -> Sites ..
add an entry for ‘z:’ or whatever letter the network drive is mapped to
this disables the annoying popup saying you are trying to download files from the internet every time you want to open a document within the drive
again, G’post, I much appreciate this work. will give it a shot and post my findings to add to this important little piece. As a marketeer in the ‘patch’, I would think that at least at this acceptance phase, MS will want to enhance this sort of approach: they should want their “cloud” enticement to work as effortlessly and seamlessly as local fileshare. the one that masters this will sweep the early adopters
hello this only works on windows 7 or windows xp can do?
hugs
it would not work on my Samsung G990 netbook running windows 7 Starter edition nor would it work on my Crypton Py8000 desktop machine running Vista Ultimate!
Cory
got it mapped, but so slow that I can’t really use it as ‘just another drive’
thanks
this does not work in vista ultimate or 7 starter
please help!
i have an easier way out of this though i use windows live mesh to sync a virtual drive!
Cory
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OK, Thanks for the information on how to set up a map drive, workes great. My question, problem, is-How can I make it go to a folder that is not public, I do not want my private documents going to a public folder. Please help. Thanks
there is a problem while copying ant thing like pics to mapped drive its saying “FILE TOO LARGE” what shoud i do now
have you fiqured out what was wrong, I am having the same issue
Hi,
When I set this during mounting proccess:
\\docs.live.net@SSL\cid-######\^2Public
it’s start to working
You nailed it! I tried MANY suggested ways and yours was the one that finally worked. Thanks!
Thanks man it worked for me
I got it to mount, I can copy things that are in it, but when ever I try to upload something to it, no matter its size its says the file is too large for the destination file system? and there is MORE then enough space?
Just type “maaghia,bedhei chhua” & try again