Add a device to see photos - prompts for MS account?

Under the Photos app, if I click on the "Add a device to see photos" it won't let me continue unless I login to a MS online account. Why?
It also wants MS login if I want to add my Facebook photos. Again, why? Why can't I just login to my FB account and access the photos?

All of the following is regarding the Device Feature of the Photos App

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Photos from all of your devices

Since the Consumer Preview, we’ve been listening to the feedback and have been hard at work making improvements. We’ve heard from many of you that most of your photos aren’t actually sitting on a web service, but they’re on a PC somewhere in your home. And often they’re on a PC that isn’t convenient to get to or in a spot conducive to gathering your dinner guests around the monitor for “show and tell.” So we’ve partnered with our friends in SkyDrive to make this a whole lot easier. Now, if you install the SkyDrive desktop app, you can choose to have all of your photos automatically sent and saved to SkyDrive. Any PC with the SkyDrive desktop app installed will show up in the Photos app. So by simply running SkyDrive desktop app on the PC(s) where all your photos reside, the Photos app will reach back to that PC so that you can look at your old photos alongside your recent ones. You’ll soon be revisiting photos you forgot you had.

Click to expand...

Source: Introducing the Photos app for Windows 8 - Building Windows 8 - Site Home - MSDN Blogs

Also see this...

Connecting your apps, files, PCs and devices to the cloud with SkyDrive and Windows 8 - Building Windows 8 - Site Home - MSDN Blogs

Thanks Tepid.

Too bad Windows 8 doesn't let me use the cloud service of my choice. I already have other services that I use. I would think it wouldn't be difficult for a photo app to, for example, just connect to my facebook account if I just provide my facebook credentials. Or connect to a network drive where I keep photos if all I do is point to the UNC path. Instead, it requires that I hook everything external to my local PC through the SkyDrive cloud. I don't really want yet another cloud account.

There may be a Photo App that does that, just have to find it, or wait for one, or write one.

As for the built in MS Photo App.

[DEL]You can create Libraries and add the UNC path, but Windows wants to Index that path on the system you map it to
If the location is huge, then that can kill your performance,(and if it is over WIFI, some routers like to drop connectivity with large amounts of data flow). Netgear and Linksys are notorious for it.

You can try the following trick, but I have not tested it myself.

Windows 7 – Add a non-indexed UNC path as a library | Squid Works

So, in essence, the Skydrive method may be better over all for remote network locations (other PC's, NAS Devices, etc.).
However, I have not tested this either, but I am going to.[/DEL]

This was even easier than I thought,, so I think things have changed in Win8.

On the PC that has the pictures you want to share in libraries,
Go to Pictures under Documents and right click / properties
Add the local path to this so that it will index this on that local PC

Then go to the remote PC that you want to access these pictures on also,
Then do the same, but point to the path.

PC1 = e:\MyPix

On that PC, Right click Pictures under Documents, then click Properties and add that location
This will index it on that system.

PC2 = do the same and add \\pc1\mypix

You will have to create a share to the drive or folder, cause Win8 will no longer allow $ hidden shares.

NOTE: I did this with a folder that has about 15,000 pictures in it. This didn't affect my system at all.

Thanks Tepid. That's a reasonable way to handle the photos-on-my-own-network case.

Yeah, I am still playing around with it myself.
it's not perfect, but it does work. Personally I don't like Libraries, I think they are messy.
But maybe I also have not used it enough to make a truly informed decision.
I am more of a direct access kind of person.

I am going to test the SkyDrive Device access stuff next and see how well that works.