Update: Microsoft Restores Windows Live Services

from logging into their accounts

"Earlier today, 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," said Samantha McManus, Windows Live product manager, in an email to ChannelWeb.

The issue affected the log-in process for customers and "largely did not impact" users who were already logged in, said McManus. "Our customers have come to expect a high level of service reliability in their experience with Windows Live and Microsoft worked aggressively to resolve this unique problem as quickly as possible," said McManus.

Microsoft didn't comment on what caused the outage, how many customers were affected, or how long the Live services were unreachable.

But in the comments section of a ChannelWeb story posted earlier today, posters from all over the U.S., as well as Germany, Denmark, Montreal, Calgary, and British Columbia, reported being unable to log into their Live accounts.

The outage comes at an inopportune time for Microsoft, which has been eagerly pushing its 'software + services vision, in which client software and in-the-cloud services interact with each other to enhance the computing experience.