Stating compatibility issues with Microsoft Office 2013's click-to-run installations, Microsoft has removed the SkyDrive Pro MSI-based client as a standalone download. The standalone client can still be installed, but the click-to-run version is the only version now available, not the MSI package.
Microsoft has been steadily moving away from MSI-based (Windows Installer) installations, which have always been too complex anyway, requiring a lot of manual manipulation to customize, deploy, and patch.
Click-to-run provides many benefits over the MSI installation. Some of those are:
- The technology uses streaming to download and install, making downloads faster and ensuring download and installation happens in the background. So, it's less intrusive to the business worker.
- Updates to products are provided automatically and don't require downloads or patches.
- Running different versions of the same products side-by-side is viable. For example, an end-user could run Office 2010 and Office 2013 on the same computer.
- Click-to-run applications only use about half the disk space as MSI-based installations.
A standalone installation is still available, just not in the MSI-based format. The full list of SkyDrive Pro installations, along with the x-platform and specific languages can be found here:
How to install the SkyDrive Pro sync client for SharePoint 2013 and SharePoint Online
What's not clear, though, is since the MSI-based installation has been retired due to compatibility reasons, should those that have the MSI-based SkyDrive Pro client installed uninstall it and install the click-to-run version? I'll be digging in to see what the communication is. If you figure out before me, let me know.
