Photos App in 8.1 loses most of its best features e.g. Facebook/Flickr support...

Agreed!

The app will become useless to me.

SkyDrive is not an option for me! I am coming up on 1TB of (network stored) images.  Unless someone plans on giving me a TB of free storage, SkyDrive is out.  SkyDrive is great for Cell Phone images, and a handful of upload images but nothing more.  We are talking RAW, TIFs and JPGs; 25Gb of SkyDrive holds very little.

It is nice to take one of my Surfaces and run a slideshow (from a network share) much like a Photo frame, or to show a client their photos (again on a network share) on the Surface with the nice clean GUI that the Photos App currently runs.

Also a lot of us set up our Elders' networks structure for them, point them at the (current) photos app and they are on auto pilot. Is MS telling me that I have to retrain my 70+ year old in-laws on decentralized locations to view photos. That is not going to fly.  I have watched them struggle with multi-apps on iOS and Android. I finally got them sold on Win8's ease of use and now that seems to be going away?

Finding this out after finding that WHS (Windows Home Server) is being dropped to be replaced with the Server 2012 essentials ($$$) is really making me wonder.  I wonder how bad the backend of Xbox One is really going to be and if I should rethink my preorder on that one.

So I figured out how to add my Skydrive pictures to the Pictures folder. However, in the explorer hierarchy, I see Pictures under Library and underneath it is another Pictures folder (which is This PC). My Skydrive pictures is linked to the higher level Pictures and still does not appear in the Photo App, which only points to the lower level Pictures folder (This PC). Windows 8 has the same hierarchy, but there the Photo App points to the higher level Pictures folder and I can see all my pictures. thoughts?

to be honest, I think this is one of the many broken things in the Photos App. Personally, I cannot get the Photos App to display anything EXCEPT what is on This PC. I don't have SkyDrive as default storage and never will as I have multiple terabytes of photos stored on my local network.

As you can see from the frustration others experience, from the MANY posts here, there aren't many answers.. I had no success copying a few images to SkyDrive, using include in Library. The desktop piece looks right to me as to the hierarchy, but there is no way the Photos App sees the images on SkyDrive.

I'm sorry I can't be of more assistance.

--

Barb

Windows Entertainment and Connected Home MVP

My Blog - http://digitalmediaphile.com/

Barb's Connected World Blog Reader Windows 8 App -  

http://apps.microsoft.com/windows/en-us/app/barbs-connected-world-blog/02f35769-52bf-461c-b1d5-06e54a58d298

Windows and Surface Community Reader Windows 8 App

http://apps.microsoft.com/windows/en-us/app/windows-and-surface-community/0abb150e-d287-47d4-837e-9fa51f485ad7

Please mark as answered if this answers your question

So I figured out how to add my Skydrive pictures to the Pictures folder. However, in the explorer hierarchy, I see Pictures under Library and underneath it is another Pictures folder (which is This PC). My Skydrive pictures is linked to the higher level Pictures and still does not appear in the Photo App, which only points to the lower level Pictures folder (This PC). Windows 8 has the same hierarchy, but there the Photo App points to the higher level Pictures folder and I can see all my pictures. thoughts?

Barb, thanks for the clarification. I did choose Skydrive as my default storage. So how to I point the Photo app to look in Skydrive? I is only looking at "This PC". Also, doesn't answer 1 contradict answer 2?

 

Please advise.

 

first - on the apparent contradiction - I probably should have said no longer allows Facebook, Flickr, and SkyDrive as external, separate connected images sources.

second - for the harder question of getting the photos app to see your pix on SkyDrive, it's hard to say what works for whom, considering the state of the photos app, but you could try:

1. adding a single image to the Pictures folder in the users hierarchy
2. display the libraries tab in explorer from the view menu
3. see if you can add both the local Pictures folder and SkyDrive by right clicking the SkyDrive pictures folder in explorer and then Add to library (or some variation thereof).

--

Barb

Windows Entertainment and Connected Home MVP

My Blog - http://digitalmediaphile.com/

Barb's Connected World Blog Reader Windows 8 App -  

http://apps.microsoft.com/windows/en-us/app/barbs-connected-world-blog/02f35769-52bf-461c-b1d5-06e54a58d298

Windows and Surface Community Reader Windows 8 App

http://apps.microsoft.com/windows/en-us/app/windows-and-surface-community/0abb150e-d287-47d4-837e-9fa51f485ad7

Please mark as answered if this answers your question

I've got to say that Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 have certainly both lost their direction.  Instead of having this brilliant idea of "hubs," where all related data goes, MS is going the direction of being just another app launcher. 

If that's the case, why would I buy a Win8 device over Android?  Or iOS?  I fully expected the messenging hub to be able to integrate WLM/FB/Skype/Gtalk/etc.... with an open API.  I expected the photos hubs to pull in from flickr/FB/Skydrive/Twitter.  It seems like the only differentiating feature with Win8 now is live tiles and a desktop mode that is difficult to use on the desktop anyway.

MS, get it right already!  Go back and fix this!