Sometimes we find ourselves using several computers regularly. Many times bloggers will find inspiration for a great article, but run out of time before it can be finished. If you use Windows Live Writer to compose blog posts, and you should, you might have run into this little problem. Luckily Windows Live Mesh comes to the rescue.
Windows Live Mesh
Installing Windows Live Mesh is a breeze. Go to https://www.mesh.com/ and sign in with your Windows Live ID, if you don’t have one, set it up real quick. Once you install Windows Live Mesh, you will have a little taskbar icon that looks like a blue ball. After it’s all set up on both machines, start the following tutorial:
Step 1: The Source Machine
Browse to the folder that you want to sync, in my case on Windows 7 it is Libraries > Documents > My Weblog Posts > Drafts and right-click the folder. Select “Add folder to Live Mesh.” Leave all settings default, and choose OK.
Your folder may vary if you use Windows Vista or Windows XP, be sure to browse to the correct folder. Also keep in mind that this approach will work even if the destination folder is on a different version of Windows.
Once you have shared this folder, it will be available for you to sync on any machine you have Mesh installed on, as well as available online through the web interface at www.mesh.com if you need to access it from a machine that does not have Mesh installed.
Now let’s set up the destination machine.
Step 2: The Destination Machine
We are assuming you have Mesh already installed and the desktop on the destination machine should have a light blue folder shortcut that has the same name as the folder you shared in step one. Double-click that folder and it will show the folder name in the first text box, and the location on your desktop in the second text box.
Click browse to the right of the second text box, and browse to the Drafts folder on this machine. If you are on the same version of Windows it should be in the same place, if the versions are different it might be in a slightly different location. On either machine it should be inside your Documents folder somewhere.
Once you have completed this step, a dialog will come up confirming that you want to sync the folder to this location and asking if you want to merge to this location, you want to merge, that way drafts has a two way connection and anything you start on one machine, will be available on the other.
Considerations
There are a couple of things you want to take note of. The drafts that you start on one machine, will not show up on the recent list on the second machine. The recent documents list is stored in the registry so it is not synced. The drafts will still be easy to access, just click open in Windows Live Writer and they should be right there under “Drafts.”
The other thing to consider is publishing. When you publish something you will get a unique publish ID assigned by the system. If you open a published draft on the second machine and attempt to republish, you will have unexpected results. Instead of updating, it will publish again as the second machine will assign a new publish ID. This technique is best reserved for sharing unpublished drafts.
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You guys rock! The very best.
Nice, Jason.
Thanks for the step by step guide. I only discovered Live Mesh thanks to a Bing search under “Windows Live writer draft,” which brought me to your site. Much appreciated.
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