In a new post on the official Building Windows 8 blog, SkyDrive program managers Mike Torres and Omar Shahine have unveiled more details about how Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) will integrate the company's SkyDrive cloud storage system into its upcoming Windows 8 operating system.

This will apparently include a Metro-style SkyDrive app, an early version of which will be available with the Windows 8 consumer preview. Signing into a SkyDrive account on a Windows 8 machine will automatically load settings such as browser history and customizations; documents and media files will also be accessible.

A SkyDrive native client will also be available on the Windows 8 desktop, as well as older versions of the Windows platform such as Windows Vista and Windows 7; there is no mention of Windows XP. One obvious benefit would be drag-and-drop upload and download support, as well as the ability to use Windows Explorer to manage files and folders. To be even more useful, SkyDrive will also support large files of up to 2 GB.

Thanks to improvements to network efficiency and overall performance, the SkyDrive application will run quietly and unobtrusively in the background. "You won't even need to know it's running," say Torres and Shahine. "As you update files on your PC, they're uploaded immediately to the cloud--and as changes are made in the cloud or on another device, they'll sync back down to the PC."

The final part is really interesting. For users who prefer not to copy all their data into SkyDrive, but who want to access data stored at their workstation, a "Forget something?" feature will give them the ability to access their PC remotely through SkyDrive.com. "We've done special work to enable remote streaming of video, and we'll treat photo albums on your remote PC exactly as we do photo albums in SkyDrive, with the same beautiful full-screen viewer."

As a security measure, two-factor authentication will be required for this service. Of course, while two-factor authentication sounds impressive, it is starting to look inadequate against increasingly sophisticated attacks. Already, some financial institutions, for example, are shifting towards the use of a third factor, given how mobile phones can be stolen or smartphones infected with Trojan malware.

For more:
- check out this article at Building Windows 8
- check out this article at TechCrunch

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