14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft is still completely mute on an outage that impacted all Windows Live services on February 26, 2008. Starting with Windows Live Messenger and ending with Windows Live Hotmail and even Xbox Live, Windows Live users had troubles signing in throughout the day due to an unspecified problem with global reverberations. Microsoft was quick to confirm the issue, however, it did point out that the problems were experienced solely by the users who were not already signed into their Windows Live ID accounts. According to the Redmond company, the difficulties experienced were related exclusively to the log-in process.
At this point in time, the Windows Live problems have been resolved. All the services under the Windows Live umbrella brand are up and running and users should no longer experience any issues. But the previous day, users that were not already signed found that it was impossible to access the Windows Live storage, e-mail, photo-sharing, calendaring, instant messaging and additional services. Although Microsoft did work first to drastically reduce the number of users that were kept out of Windows Live due to the glitch in the sign-in process, the company has yet to make public the source of the problem.
"Earlier [on February 26, 2008], an issue began that has caused some consumers worldwide to experience difficulty logging in to their Windows Live ID accounts. This issue has since been resolved and normal operations have been restored to all customers," revealed Samantha McManus, Windows Live product manager. "Microsoft customers experienced issues accessing various services that rely on Windows Live ID for authentication including Windows Live Hotmail, Windows Live Messenger and Xbox Live. We worked to identify the issue and have restored full normal operation to all of our customers. There is no danger of data loss or data compromise. It is important to note that the security and privacy of our customers was at no time compromised as a result of this issue."