Blue screen appearing on millions of Windows PCs worldwide, causing restarts

Microsoft Windows Outage: If you are reading this, chances are you have experienced the Windows outage or heard someone else talk about the issue that is impacting millions of Windows computers globally. So, what exactly is causing this outage and why is it affecting so many computers worldwide? In essence, users are encountering random restarts and the dreaded ‘Blue Screen of Death’ (BSOD) error on their Windows PCs. This disruption has had a significant impact on various industries, including aviation, with airlines like Indigo, SpiceJet, and Akasa confirming that their ground operations have been disrupted, leading to flight delays.

We at HT Media Group are also facing the problem and several employees from different departments are reporting this problem. Our laptops have been rebooting randomly causing delays in work.

What has caused this Microsoft Windows restart problem?

According to Microsoft’s official statement, the issue is caused by Microsoft 365 applications and services not working properly. Microsoft notes that “A configuration change in some of our Azure back-end workloads caused an interruption between storage and compute resources, resulting in connectivity failures affecting Microsoft 365 services that depend on these connections.”

The company also acknowledged that it is working to mitigate issues with Microsoft 365 apps and services.

However, a major consequence of this issue is its impact on CrowdStrike Falcon agents. Experts including John Hammond have pointed out that these agents are “exploding”, and this is what has caused the “Blue Screen of Death” startup problems for millions of computers.

What are people saying?

Working professionals, businesses and others are struggling with this issue, with many expressing their frustration on social media. “CrowdStrike decided people needed a day off today. Windows machines around the world should be down,” user @lulu_blaugrana said jokingly on X.

Another user expressed his joy, posting a meme video saying: “People in the office watching their laptop screens turn blue and leaving early on Friday for the weekend thanks to a CrowdStrike tech outage!”

Indigo Airlines has also confirmed that their operations have been affected. The official Indigo X account asked people to refrain from booking attempts. “Due to ongoing issues with Microsoft Azure affecting systems worldwide, we ask that you refrain from making multiple booking attempts during this time,” Indigo said.

So far, it appears that the outage has not been resolved, with outage tracking site Downdetector still showing spikes at 2pm on Friday.