Previously:
Battle Of The Browser Updates
Comparing The New Internet Browsers, aka Microsoft And The LastPass Problem
Syncing Bookmarks And Favorites With Firefox 4 And Chrome 10
![ie9logo_thumb[19]](https://s14633.pcdn.co/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/ie9logo_thumb19.jpg "ie9logo_thumb[19]")
Microsoft is bringing up the rear for a reason.
Since it’s not obvious how to do it, let’s type “IE9 sync favorites” into Google. The first choice takes us – well, it takes us to an obsolete third-party site. But the second choice! Ah, that must lead right to the official Microsoft answer: “Sync your favorites using Windows Live Toolbar.” Perfect!
![ie9syncgooglesearch_thumb[4]](https://s14633.pcdn.co/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/ie9syncgooglesearch_thumb4.jpg "ie9syncgooglesearch_thumb[4]")
We don’t want a toolbar but the page promises that favorites will be synced and stored in our Skydrive account for online access, and that’s good, right? So bravely click the link on that page to “Install Windows Live Toolbar”!
Hmm. That link goes to the Windows Live Essentials 2011 page, and there’s no mention there of a “Windows Live Toolbar.”
There’s a “Bing Bar.” Maybe that’s it – after all, the “Bing Bar” is the new version of the annoying Windows Live Toolbar. And yet over on the Bing Bar page, there’s no mention of syncing favorites. The Bing Bar looks completely useless, instead of almost completely useless like its predecessor.
Let me end the suspense. There is no method from Microsoft built into Internet Explorer 9 to sync Internet favorites among computers. It was removed from the add-on toolbar a few months ago and moved over to Live Mesh, the crippled program that deserves to be ignored. (Before its most recent name change, when it was still called “Windows Live Sync,” it inspired one of my most heartfelt rants. The failure of Live Mesh represents everything you need to know about Microsoft’s lack of vision and inability to lead us into the world of cloud computing.)
You’ll recall the other things synced by Firefox and Chrome in addition to bookmarks. They sync a variety of things related to web browsing – browser preferences, history, tab groups, saved passwords, and the like.
Live Mesh will sync Internet favorites “and if you have Microsoft Office installed, you can sync your styles, templates, custom dictionary, and email signatures.” That’s it. Syncing an Office custom dictionary is helpful to some people, I’m sure, but it’s not exactly a grabber on the feature list.
I’m not going to detail the process of setting up Live Mesh. It makes me irritable. I uninstall Live Mesh when I find it and send people to Dropbox instead. Dropbox doesn’t sync favorites but it is otherwise better than Live Mesh in every conceivable way.
Technical note: I feel like I should mention this, since I do it. It’s possible to make Dropbox sync your IE Favorites. It’s really geeky. It requires installation of the Dropbox Folder Sync add-on, which moves folders into Dropbox and replaces them in their original locations with symbolic links. It looks easy but in reality it’s powerful and things break if you get too happy with it. If the words “symbolic links” frighten you, don’t go there.
Tomorrow: Syncing Bookmarks And Favorites With Xmarks
It seems so simple. Just make it so I can see the same favorites on my Surface, my Windows 8 Phone and my Windows 7 (and eventually Windows 8) PC. Why is that such a difficult thing to offer? SkyDrive is the backbone storage solution. Just bake the sync feature into the browser.
The workflow offered by Chrome works well. You essentially ‘log into’ the browser at which point your favorites are synced.
Slowly but surely. Especially slowly.
Microsoft is building your Microsoft account deeply into the OS so that it does the same functions as your Google account and more. Windows 8 and Windows RT sync IE favorites along with other settings – everything from passwords to wallpaper to wireless network settings. Your Windows 8 computer and the Surface will work with each other in exactly the intuitive way you want.
But a lot of that has not been plugged into Windows 7. IE 10 has been previewed for Windows 7 and it doesn’t add Favorites syncing. Too bad! That’s a weak point.
At the moment, there’s a weird hole, the other thing you noticed. IE Favorites are not synced with Windows Phone 8. I can’t find any good explanation of why that’s not done – it seems like a natural thing to include.
Hi, its been a year since your post. I just dragged my favourites folder to Skype-drive 🙂 and it moved them, and is syncing on multiple machines. You need the skydrive app for this. Doubt it will run on xp, those sneaky MS buzzazrds.
Really! If you move Favorites, then Windows 7 will follow it? That’s cool! I didn’t know that. I’ve got all my documents and pictures in Skydrive and it’s been working flawlessly – plus it just picked up selective sync a few days ago, so you can choose what folders are synced to each device. Good stuff.
You can use Skydrive to sync your favorites/bookmarks with Internet Explorer. Windows Observer has a simple procedure to follow to do this: http://www.windowsobserver.com/2012/04/24/sync-internet-explorer-favorites-with-new-skydrive-app/. Check it out, it works.
Good catch! You’re absolutely right. Even better: Windows 8 syncs favorites among your different devices without any special configuration. Thanks!
I use SugarSync. Unlike Dropbox, Box, etc. you can sync any folder with SugarSync; no stupid root sync folder to worry about.
My IE9 Favorites sync flawlessly with SugarSync. Problem solved. No workarounds, addins, toolbars, and SugarSync is faster and cheaper than Dropbox too.
Seems like Skydrive is the way to go now. With the recent release of Skydrive Application for Windows & Mac in 2012, MS has won my support. It’s like dropbox, but it offers 7GB of free space. And because I used Live Mesh before (for those of you who signed up for Live Mesh in the past, you can do this too) — MS is rewarding me by offering me a free upgrade to 25 GB! Just go into the “space management” in Skydrive and click “upgrade for free” if you used Live Mesh before. That’s 25 GB of free dropbox-like space, more than 10x the amount given to you by Dropbox, 4x the amount given to you by iCloud. Why would anyone use anything else? (unless you have linux, then you should use Dropbox).
It took me about 10 minutes (including download/instal time) to setup Windows Live Mesh (I didn’t download all the other stuff that comes in the package) to sync my favorites between two computers. And it seems to work just fine.
Well what a disaster !You guys have gone from Bookmarks and Favorites to lynching Bill Gates and waffling on about everything but a solution.
Just instal xMarks and sync between any browser. I use it from Ie9 to Chrome to Firefox on my Linux Installation…and I believe IE9 is a better browser than Chrome, I have them all and IE9 is just great these days. You should just remove all the Bing stuff and add Google accelerators and Translator and Search and you have the best goddam browsing experience you can get…All thanks to Google and Bill…:-)
Happy Xmas all
You’re absolutely right! The next article in that series was about Xmarks. After I wrote that, I began using it and now I can’t imagine not having it running all the time.
Live Mesh works well for syncing folders across computers using SkyDrive.
I really like the ability to map SkyDrive to my Win7 as a network drive. That is useful! Complain all you want but having cloud storage (25GB) free directly connected (visible to all my apps) is great.
I found how to do it here…
http://www.howtogeek.com/56096/how-to-use-skydrives-25-gb-as-a-mapped-drive-for-easy-access/
Although technically that’s true, my experience when I tried it matched the reports of many of the people who left comments on that page: it was slow as molasses, unituitive to set up, and frustrating to have to set up a new shortcut for each folder rather than having root access. The Skydrive team has either been muzzled or shows a distinct lack of creativity – or perhaps Microsoft is terrified of what would be unleashed if they made it convenient to use its servers for online storage. It’s so easy to imagine how Skydrive could be fully integrated that the failure to do it has to reflect some top-level decision.
Interesting article last month on LiveSide.net, a site devoted to covering MS Live services: “What is Skydrive waiting for?” Excerpt: “SkyDrive is Microsoft’s big chance, and maybe last chance, to capture some hearts and minds in the consumer space. Coupled with Windows Live Mesh (which we’ve heard little about either, except for some lame trickery about syncing your desktop backgrounds in Windows 8. Who needs that? What we need is seamless files synchronization across devices and across platforms), SkyDrive has all the pieces in place to blow the doors off the competition, yet Microsoft drives their consumer offerings with one foot firmly on the brake.”
Sad, but true.
I don’t think your comparing the right things (easy to do in the mess of MS cloud stuffs), I beleive Live Mesh is now targeted at stictly Windows Settings Syncronization. Where Sky Drive would be the proper comparison for Dropbox. Sky Drive clients are not available for as many platforms as Dropbox, but it does give you more free space.
Not quite true. Live Mesh has been so poorly designed and promoted that it’s not even clear how to use it. It absolutely can be used to sync folders between computers – that’s meant to be its primary purpose. It’s not fully integrated with other Skydrive services but Live Mesh can be set to use online storage space (“Skydrive”) as an intermediary, so both computers don’t have to be on at the same time. http://explore.live.com/windows-live-mesh
At the demonstrations last week of Windows 8, Microsoft hinted that it had big plans for Live Mesh to let it sync files among computers and other devices, like Windows Phones and Windows tablets. But they gave no details and seemed to evade answering questions about whether Live Mesh would ever be as useful as Dropbox.
Hi, but u can copy & keep the favorite folder in windows.
Well now that Mozilla has completely and utterly ruined Firefox woth version 6, what choice is there but to use IE. Chrome is not up to snuff with its security encryption for many sites.
Way to go Mozilla!!!
I haven’t gotten any feedback about Firefox 6. In fact, Firefox seems to have lost its luster – IE9 is pretty sturdy and I run into Chrome frequently but I seldom run into anyone enthusiastic about Firefox. My clients aren’t typical – they skew older and more conservative. It’s been pretty noticeable in that group.
I figured that some time ago: I have a friend who is a Microsoft lover and almost religiously evades an answer is the answer is NO. So after I didn’t hear in about an hour I knew IE9 can not sync favorites! Go Microsoft!