When I bought my Nokia Lumia 520 I set it up to synchronise my photos and passwords with SkyDrive but quickly encountered a problem: Each time I logged into my Windows 7 machine, SkyDrive wouldn’t synchronise with the message “SkyDrive – Not Signed In”.

None of the solutions I found on Google would work for me but I finally came up with this:

  • open the SkyDrive settings by right clicking on the cloud icon in the notification area of the Windows taskbar
  • disable “Start SkyDrive automatically when I sign in to Windows”
  • expand the Windows start menu -> All programs
  • right click on the “Startup” folder and pick “Open”
  • a new window will open, right click into it an select “New” -> “Shortcut”
  • expand the Windows start menu again and locate the “Microsoft SkyDrive” shortcut
  • right click it, pick “Properties” and copy its “Target” value
  • paste this value into the shortcut location window you had opened before
  • click on “Next”
  • modify the name if you want and “Finish”

The only downside to this change, as far as I can see, is that the system will only synchronise files when you’re logged in, which isn’t a major issue for me, in fact, it’s no issue at all.

SkyDrive is Microsoft’s cloud storage solution for sharing files, comparable to Dropbox and gives you 7GB of free storage.

You can download Microsoft SkyDrive here: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/skydrive/download