An hours-long outage is preventing Microsoft's enterprise customers from accessing their inboxes, files, and video meetings.

The company blamed "service infrastructure in the North America region" that wasn't "processing traffic as expected" for users of its hugely popular services

EAU CLAIRE, Wis. (WEAU) - Microsoft has confirmed that its 365 system is experiencing a widespread outage affecting users across parts of North America. The company posted an alert on X (formerly Twitter) around 2:17 p.m., announcing that it has identified the problem and is working to restore services.

The dilemma for millions of Windows users now is that Microsoft also warns that “while you might choose ultimately to uninstall a security update, you should know the risks associated with the uninstallation.” These include vulnerability to attacks, compromised personal information and potential data loss, Microsoft says.