PCs All-in-One For Dummies®, 5th Edition

Chapter 7. Working with SkyDrive

In This Chapter

• Creating a SkyDrive

• Adding your own folders

• Saving and loading documents from your SkyDrive

In the ancient days at the turn of this century, Microsoft Office stayed put on your hard drive. Sure, you could share documents with others through e-mail, or scoot documents around on your office network, but you certainly didn't create or save stuff online!

Enter the neatest innovation that I've seen in many years for Office users: the new Microsoft SkyDrive online storage system, which offers anyone with a Windows Live account a whopping 25GB of space. Oh, and did I mention that you can access the files stored on your SkyDrive anywhere in the world? If you have an Internet connection, you're online with SkyDrive — it's that simple.

In this chapter, I demonstrate how you can use SkyDrive to store your Office documents, and how you can customize your online storage for your needs. Get ready to live the carefree life of hardware independence!

Answers to Your Online Storage Queries

Before I delve into creating and using a SkyDrive, I want to answer some common questions I've often received from readers about online storage:

• Is my stuff safe? The answer is a definite yes; Microsoft maintains the servers where your data is stored, and backs them up on a regular basis. In fact, I'd venture to say that the data you store on your SkyDrive is as safe as your physical hard drive. Just locate an Internet connection you can use, and your data is within reach ...