Skype Users Blame Microsoft for Temporary Outage

Posted 05/26/2011 at 9:11am | by Paul Lilly

6

Comments

Print

Some people just can't seem to shed the notion that Microsoft is crash prone. Skype this morning posted a message on its Twitter account saying that some users may have problems signing into the VoIP service and placing calls. Naturally this opened the floodgates for users to slam Microsoft's recent announcement that it plans to acquire Skype for $8.5 billion.

"Seems like #skype crash is global. Now you know it's a Microsoft product," one user tweeted.

The truth is, Microsoft played no role in this most recent glitch. Skype said it discovered the cause, which it traced to a corrupt "shared.xml" file. If you're one of the "small number" of people affected, Skype posted instructions on how to sidestep the issue (see here) while it works on rolling out an "easier solution," presumably one that won't require users to enable hidden files and folders.

While most of the Twitter comments blasting Microsoft have so far been tongue-in-cheek, for anyone who might actually think Microsoft is somehow to blame, keep in mind that the takeover deal isn't yet complete, meaning Skype is still running on the same infrastructure as before. Plus, it's been a long time since Windows was truly crash prone. Just goes to show how tough it is shedding an old reputation.