We’re live! You can sign up here: http://skydrive.live.com

Here are a few things you’ll find on your shiny new SkyDrive:

• 25 GB of free online storage
• Available in 6 more regions and 13 more languages
• Download entire folders as Zip files (limited release)
• Gorgeous online slide show for your photos
• And much, much more!

Check it out and let us know what you think.

-The SkyDrive Team

Six months ago, we announced our last update to SkyDrive right here on the SkyDrive team blog. Although we've been pretty hush-hush since then, the team has been working diligently to bring you new features and improvements across SkyDrive and the rest of Windows Live based directly on your feedback.

While we work on the finishing touches, here's a taste of what's to come.

Even more free online storage
People are taking more photos than ever—50 billion in 2007—we figured you could use a little more storage space. How much? You told us you liked the last fivefold increase, so we're doing it again, bringing the grand total to 25 GB of free online storage.

More control over your online data
You asked us to make it easier to organize and download your files, so we're answering you with four key new features to address your needs:

• Download photos directly to your Windows Live Photo Gallery.
• Download as a .zip file. Download an entire folder in one compressed file (initially available only in the United States, Denmark, and Ireland).
• Move files between folders.
• Copy files to multiple folders.

Photos rule!
We love photos just as much as you do, that's why we've added over 20 new features, improvements, and tweaks to make photos pop on SkyDrive. Here are a few of our favorites:

• Bigger thumbnails. We've increased the display size your photos throughout the site.
• Order prints. Order prints of your photos right from SkyDrive.
• A gorgeous online slide show. Works with any browser, but works even better if you have Microsoft Silverlight installed.
• People tags. Tag your friends and family.

Sharing should be easy
We’ve dramatically renovated the sharing experience to make it easier to share the stuff you care about.

• Share your files and photos without requiring friends and family to use Windows Live ID
• Organize your contacts by category for easy repeat sharing, or share with your entire network or extended network.
• Share links to your favorite websites using Windows Live Toolbar. The links are stored on your SkyDrive.
• See what your friends have shared lately all in one place.

Plus much, much more
Hold tight, we're updating your SkyDrive sooner than you know it with dozens more improvements. Things like:

• Keep your Internet Explorer favorites in sync between computers, and access them anywhere from your SkyDrive.
• Make comments work the way you want them to with HTML, new comment options, and spam control.
• A complete overhaul of the look and feel to match the look and feel of Windows Live.
• More countries and regions: Arabia, China, Hong Kong, Israel, South Africa, Vietnam and 13 new languages: Basque, Catalan, Guajarati, Hindi, Indonesian, Kannada, Malay, Malayalam, Marathi, Serbian-Cyrillic, Tamil, Telugu, and Vietnamese.

When can you expect to see the changes? Soon. We’ll let you know the minute it’s available right here on the SkyDrive team blog.

You can also learn more about our new release at the Windows Live website.

- The SkyDrive Team

• More places. We're now live in 24 additional locations, bringing our grand total to 62 countries and regions! We welcome new users in Bulgaria, Costa Rica, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Indonesia, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Malaysia, Philippines, Poland, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, Thailand, Ukraine, and Venezuela!
• Comments. You can leave comments on any file in SkyDrive and see all of the recent comments people have left for you.
• Captions. A picture's worth a thousand words, but sometimes you need a few more. Now you can add captions and descriptions to your files and photos:
• Click control.  When you click on any file, you can speed through all the files in the folder:
• Larger photo previews - we've made the photo previews even bigger.

We’ve also added some other features like Details view and Photo Thumbnails view, plus more bug fixes (keep the feedback coming!). So have a look, kick the tires on all the new stuff, and let us know what you think. And as always, thanks for using SkyDrive!

-The SkyDrive team.

Thanks for all the comments and feedback on our new release! We’ve received a bunch of great feature suggestions, many of which we hope to address in upcoming releases. The biggest request we’ve seen is to make SkyDrive more widely available. We plan to roll out in many more markets in the next year, so stay tuned!

Here are the other top requests so far:

• Allowing multiple downloads at once.
• Displaying how many times a file has been downloaded.
• Supporting file synchronization from the desktop.
• Providing an API for storing and retrieving files.
• Adding SkyDrive access from Windows Explorer.

Any other feature requests or cool ideas? Leave a comment! And thanks for using SkyDrive.

- The SkyDrive Team

With the new release of SkyDrive, we’re excited to show you two new ways to stay up-to-date on the latest files from your friends.

Want to know when someone shares new files on SkyDrive?
Easy. Simply add them to your Windows Live Messenger contact list. When they share new files on SkyDrive, a yellow “gleam” appears next to their name and their contact card shows the last few files they’ve uploaded.

Here’s a contact card with three files: a video and
two photos. You can click the files on the contact
card to access them directly.

Want to see what your friends are sharing across Windows Live?
Simply visit your Spaces home to see what your friends have been up to, including the latest files they’ve shared with you on SkyDrive. You can read more about this feature here http://robdolin.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!3C8CA60F8F925FEC!884.entry

Here’s an example of a Spaces home. From this page, Rob can see everything
his friends have been up to on Windows Live, including the recent files they’ve
shared with him on SkyDrive.

Good luck, and as always, we appreciate your feedback.

Thanks,
SkyDrive Team

These past couple of months since our last release, we asked ourselves, “What can we do to make SkyDrive even better?” The most obvious answer is something that our users have asked us to do: give out more storage. We’re excited to announce that we’re doubling everyone’s storage to 1 GB!

Many users told us, “Hey, we want to be notified when someone adds a file to a specific folder,” so we added RSS feeds to public folders. To subscribe to an RSS feed, go to the public folder that you’re interested in, and click on the orange RSS Feed icon  at the top right of the page. Then, anytime that folder is updated, you’ll be notified. We love this feature because we get notified as soon as our friends upload new files to their folders.

Another thing users told us is that it’s difficult to share a folder with people that aren’t in your address book. People said, “We have to go to Hotmail or Messenger in order to add someone to our address books. Why can’t we just do it on SkyDrive itself?” We fixed that. Now, you can share with anyone directly from SkyDrive by typing in your friend’s e-mail address.

Finally, users told us that it would be nice to know who uploaded each file. So, we now display the name of the person that added each file.

We’re excited about these new features, and we hope you like them. Check out the new version, and let us know what you think.

--Windows Live SkyDrive Team

Here’s the best way to make changes to a file that you’ve uploaded to your SkyDrive:

1. Download the file to a known location on your hard drive
2. Edit and save that file just like any normal file on your hard drive
3. When you're finished making changes, visit SkyDrive and navigate to the folder where you originally downloaded the file
4. Click Add files and upload the file

SkyDrive will automatically replace the older version of the file as long as the new version has the same name.

We're always listening for your feedback, so let us know how it goes!

-The SkyDrive Team

• An upgraded look and feel — new graphics to go along with your new features!
• "Also on SkyDrive" — easily get back to the SkyDrives you’ve recently visited
• Thumbnail images — we heard you loud and clear, and now you can see thumbnails of your image files
• Drag and drop your files — sick of our five-at-a-time upload limit? Drag and drop your files right onto your SkyDrive
• Embed your stuff anywhere — with just a few clicks, post your files and folders anywhere you can post html