The Reason Behind the Recent Windows Live Sync Outage
This Friday, the 23rd of October, we were anxiously waiting the weekend with a big grin on our face. Not because of the weekend, but because of the three new Get a Mac ads that make fun of Microsoft’s latest release, Windows 7. While we were smiling, Windows Live Sync users were not happy, not happy at all. Windows Live Sync experienced an extended period of downtime on the 22nd of October - most users were unaware of the reason why they couldn’t log into their accounts.
The Windows Live Team has acknowledged the outage and expressed its sincere apologies to Windows Live Sync Users. It also provided an explanation for the outage.
“We discovered a serious problem in Windows Live Sync that could cause problems in rare cases for people who used Windows Easy Transfer. As a precaution, at 9:15 Pacific Time (UTC-7) [on October 22] we decided to stop allowing people to sign in to Sync until we could fix the problem. Early this morning [October 23], we released an update to Sync and began allowing people to sign in again. The next time you use your computers that are running Sync, you’ll be prompted to update the program. This is a required update and you won’t be able to connect until you install,” explained Group Program Manager with Windows Live, Eric Doerr.
It should be noted that Windows 7 was released on the 22nd of October. If you already had your computer running on Windows 7 when the update mentioned by Eric Doerr was released, you will not be prompted for an update. What you need to do instead is go to the Sync website and add your computer back to all the folders you want to sync.
Eric Doerr again: “We know this is a hassle and we apologize for this inconvenience. You’ll also see that your computer shows up on the Sync website with a new name—you can safely go ahead and delete the old computer from the website. Rest assured that your files and folders are safe.”
If you would like to get started with Windows Live Sync, please click here.
The Windows Live Team has acknowledged the outage and expressed its sincere apologies to Windows Live Sync Users. It also provided an explanation for the outage.
“We discovered a serious problem in Windows Live Sync that could cause problems in rare cases for people who used Windows Easy Transfer. As a precaution, at 9:15 Pacific Time (UTC-7) [on October 22] we decided to stop allowing people to sign in to Sync until we could fix the problem. Early this morning [October 23], we released an update to Sync and began allowing people to sign in again. The next time you use your computers that are running Sync, you’ll be prompted to update the program. This is a required update and you won’t be able to connect until you install,” explained Group Program Manager with Windows Live, Eric Doerr.
It should be noted that Windows 7 was released on the 22nd of October. If you already had your computer running on Windows 7 when the update mentioned by Eric Doerr was released, you will not be prompted for an update. What you need to do instead is go to the Sync website and add your computer back to all the folders you want to sync.
Eric Doerr again: “We know this is a hassle and we apologize for this inconvenience. You’ll also see that your computer shows up on the Sync website with a new name—you can safely go ahead and delete the old computer from the website. Rest assured that your files and folders are safe.”
If you would like to get started with Windows Live Sync, please click here.
