Gladinet Cloud Desktop Starter Edition

4.0 stars

"Pretty good free solution"

February 14, 2012  |   By kanbrain

Version: Gladinet Cloud Desktop Starter Edition 4.0.839

Pros

Free. Allows Google Docs, Skydrive, etc. to be treated as a virtual desktop drive. Reasonably easy to install and set up. Drag and drop files to upload.

Cons

In Windows, "Send to" on the right-click menu will not send the file to the virtual Z: drive as it initially sets up. This is fixable but it takes extra effort and Gladinet provides no obvious directions.

Summary

I'm a regular user of Google Docs and Windows Skydrive for collaborative editing, file sharing, etc. The free version of Gladinet provides a convenient alternative to having to open a browser window to upload files to these or other cloud sites.

Installation is pretty straightforward, up to a point. The setup console asks for the URL location(s) of your personal Docs or other cloud storage folder. I initially set up both my Google Docs Windows Skydrive sites. Gladinet puts an icon in the Windows task bar which provides easy access to the Gladinet virtual drive (Z:) or to its management console. The virtual drive opens to a Windows Explorer window which displays all the folders in the online site(s). You can then drag and drop a file into any of the online folders exactly as you would on your desktop. Or alternately, open, move, delete, etc. files in the online folders.

Some reviewers here complain about limited file size and slow execution. I haven't tried moving any very big files or batches so it hasn't been a problem for me. And speed of uploading files via Comcast cable has been very fast.

The annoying (but solvable) problem I ran into was when I tried to use the "Send to" option when you right-click on a file in a folder on your computer. The Gladinet virtual drive Z: appears as one of the destination options. But -- at least with multiple online sites included in the Gladinet drive -- sending a file to Z: produces a confusing error message along the line that Z: is a virtual directory; please mount a virtual directory.

By searching the Web for "modifying send to" in Windows, I found directions that enabled me to solve the problem. Basically you must find the "Send to" folder under Windows Users/Apps; create a shortcut in the Gladinet Z: directory for whatever online folder(s) you would want to send files to; then drag the shortcut(s) into "Send to" menu folder. With that done, it then is easy to right-click on a file and send it to any online folder you want.

That's all I needed Gladinet to do. Having set it up now the way I wanted, I find the free app very useful. As other reviewers indicated, I have not found another app that does the same thing.

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