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Microsoft’s Office Live Workspace (OLW) is a free file sharing and online storage service. In the workspace you can create, save, access, edit and share documents with Microsoft Office Word, Excel, PowerPoint, PDF, etc.
It is something similar to Google Documents wherein you can access and share the documents and files from any computer with just an internet connection and a web browser.
But Office Live Workspace requires Office software and special Office Live software on each computer. There’s browser viewing but no editing.
The last time we look at Office Live Workspace is was a mess, so much so that we preferred not to review it because there’s was so little to commend it.
In this series, we’ll look at the basics of Office Live Workspace, from creating an account to basic editing. But we’re not sure if you should use Office Live Workspace unless and until it is integrated in some way with Office Web Apps – with the two together you’ll be able to edit a document on any computer with Office software or not.
OLW also assumes you have a fast and reliable net connection. There is no automatic way to take documents 'offline' for further editing.
Same company, different clouds
At this stage Office Live Workspace is NOT, repeat NOT, related to Office Web Applications. You’d think that a document uploaded to Office Live Workspace would be an ideal candidate for viewing and editing by the Office Web Apps – but apparently not.
For the moment at least, Office Live Workspace and Office Web Apps don’t talk to each other and the storage locations (Workspaces vs Skydrive) are different. It’s hard to believe the two services come from the one company.
And don’t get us started about Microsoft Live Mesh which is yet another storage area from Microsoft. Live Mesh would make either Office Web Apps so much better. Yet Live Mesh isn’t even on the development radar. Whenever we ask about Live Mesh and Office Web Apps, Microsofties merely parrot broad platitudes In a few sad cases, they ask us what Live Mesh is!
How to setup Office Live Workspace
To get started with OLW open a web browser and type the following URL http://workspace.officelive.com/ . You will be taken to the homepage.
 Office Live Workspace home page As shown in the above screenshot, click on the “Get Started Now” button.
Now here is the catch. As shown in the below screenshot you are supposed to enter an email address. At first you may wonder as to which email id to enter whether it is MSN or just any valid email id. There is no link provided either to Sign up for a new Windows Live Account although it is mentioned in the FAQ section of the OLW website that you will need a “Windows Live ID with a valid email inbox” to work with OLW.
 Office Live Workspace - enter email address I entered my Gmail address and clicked the ‘Next’ button. As shown in the below screenshot I’m asked to “Create an Account” by entering certain information.
 Office Live Workspace - create account So once I enter all the information and click the “Finish” button I’m taken to the confirmation page as shown in the below screenshot. This implies that you don’t really require a Windows Live ID to access the Workspace instead any of your mail IDs will do.
 Office Live Workspace - confirm email Once you click the activation link given in the email, your workspace account will be activated. As shown in the below screenshot you will be taken to your personal Workspace area where you can define separate workspaces for different projects like work, home, etc. You can then add documents like MS Word, Excel to the workspace, edit it and share it with anyone.
 Office Live Workspace - add documents The capacity of the workspace is 5 GB and individual file size in the workspace is limited to 25 MB each.
Office Live Add-in
To let you open, edit and save Office documents from your computer to an online workspace you’ll need the Office Live Workspace add-in.
On all our test machines we didn’t have to install the Office Live Workspace software because Microsoft had already pushed it out to the computer via Windows/Microsoft update. If you don’t have the software you can download it from here then use Windows Update to make sure it’s the very latest release. The add-in works with Office XP, Office 2003 and Office 2007.
Otherwise you’ll be prompted when you first try to edit a workspace document:
 Office Live Workspace - prompt to install add-in Office 2010 seems to integrate Skydrive (and thus Office Web Apps) into Office. In the new ‘Backstage’ share option there’s a choice ‘Save to Skydrive’. No mention of Office Live Workspace.
There – you’re into Office Live Workspace. Next we’ll look at setting up a workspace.
Article posted: Thursday, 10 December 2009
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