Google Drive Shell Extension is a Shell Namespace Extension for Microsoft Windows. It creates a virtual folder on My Computer, mirrored in the user's home directory, that allows the user to interact with his Google Drive account transparently through Windows Explorer. This includes "File Open" and "Browse" commands from within other Windows applications, etc. It connects to Google Drive using the Google Drive Proxy service.
The main feature of the project is that syncronization is performed only as needed. Instead of holding the entire contents of your Google Drive folder on disk, it only keeps what it needs. When you open or copy files it will download them. It will then upload any changes you make locally to keep the folders in sync. This means that your content is not available while offline.
The Google Drive Shell Extension implementation has a few limitations that both users and administrators should be aware of.
User actions to open a Drive document need to occur through the shell extension interface. If a user accesses documents outside of this method the user will not get the most updated content from Drive and saved changes will not get uploaded back to Drive.
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For example a user opens MyFile.docx from the shell extension interface in My Computer the tool downloads the file to a temporary location on disk while the user is editing the document, the extension will monitor this file location for save events and upload changes back to Drive.
However, lets assume the user logs off of the computer and comes back later to open the same MyFile.docx. If the user opens Word and uses the recents menu to open MyFile.docx the file is opened from the temporary file cache location. This action will not invoke the shell extension or its features and the temporary file will be opened in the editor. The shell extension will not be aware of any actions related to the temporary file. If there is a newer revision of the file in Drive it will not be downloaded. The changes saved to the temporary file will not be uploaded to Drive. These same limitations apply to other recents file menus for example in the Start Menu or other file open methods that circumvent the shell extension as the means for accessing the Drive content.
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The Google Drive Shell Extension is not accessible to applications virtualized using Microsoft's App-V technology. If using a virtualized application or using the shell extension on a terminal server, the shell extension is only available to natively installed applications. Applications virtualization using Microsoft's App-V are unable to see shell extension. Microsoft recently added new support for specific shell extension features in App-V 5 SP2 however this does not include support for the features needed to support the Google Drive shell extension.
- Windows 7 32-bit and 64-bit
- Windows 8
- Windows Server
- Citrix Server
The bundled Visual Studio Solution file will work with Visual Studio 2010 and later, and includes:
- the DriveFusion dll project This project builds the Shell Namespace Extension.
- the DriveFusion.Installer WiX project This project builds the Installer for the Shell Namespace Extension. This only includes Google Drive Shell Extension, it will not install the Drive Proxy service.
Project dependencies:
- Visual Studio - http://www.visualstudio.com/
- NuGet package manager - https://www.nuget.org/
- WiX Toolset - http://wixtoolset.org/
- Nullsoft Scriptable Install System - http://nsis.sourceforge.net/
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Once everything is installed, clone the project locally.
git clone https://github.com/google/google-drive-shell-extension.git
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Enter the repository's directory.
cd google-drive-shell-extension
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Update the project's submodules.
git submodule update --init --recursive
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Follow google-drive-proxy's build instructions.
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Edit Release.bat and make sure the paths to MSBuild.exe and makensis.exe are correct for your machine.
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Execute Release.bat.
After building, go to the ./bin folder and execute DriveFusion.exe. This will launch the installer, which will automatically install both Google Drive Shell Extension and the Google Drive Proxy service to the appropriate Program Files folder. The only required interaction is a UAC prompt to grant admin privilege.
The Google Drive Proxy service is always installed to the 32-bit Program Files folder, under "Google/Drive Proxy". Google Drive Shell Extension will match your Windows' architecture Program Files folder, under "Google/Drive Fusion".
After installing the project, you'll find a new virtual folder in My Computer. The first time you attempt to open it, it will launch a browser window and request your Google Account username and password. It will then request that you authorize the application to access Google Drive. Once it has authenticated your credentials, you will be able to view the contents of your Google Drive account and treat it as any other folder. You can create folders, create new files, drag and drop into and out of it, etc.
For questions and answers join/view the [google-drive-shell-extension] (https://groups.google.com/d/forum/google-drive-shell-extension) Google Group.