Businesses' global operations Friday morning were affected by technical glitches seemingly linked to Windows working stations.

Several major enterprises, such as Sky News, airports, airline carriers and the London Stock Exchange, saw some operations grinding to a halt. Users took to social media to report "blue screens of death," a sign of malfunctioning Windows laptops or workstations.

Melbourne airport was one of those affected, citing a "global technology issue" that affected "check-in procedures for some airlines," it said on X.

Airports across Europe also seemed to struggle.

Dutch airport Schiphol said a "global computer failure" had impacted flights. London Gatwick cited problems in the check-in procedures, citing "global Microsoft issues." Berlin Brandenburg airport also reported delays at check-in.

Other transport companies, such as the Belgian railway company, cited IT issues impacting sales channels or online announcements.

Ryanair warned on its site that due to a "global third party IT outage" booking and check-in were unavailable.

The London Stock Exchange operated normally but said it could not publish news on its site.

Major broadcasters also reported issues preventing them broadcasting live. Several Sky employees flagged issues on X.

Users on a subreddit (a forum-like thread on aggregation site Reddit) of cybersecurity firm Crowdstrike also flagged outages. After that, the Windows crashes were linked to Crowdstrike's Falcon platform, which fends off cyber attacks.

Microsoft acknowledged that it experienced two non-related issues: one related to its cloud platform Azure, and another related to cybersecurity firm Crowdstrike.

"We are aware of [an] issue affecting a subset of customers," it said in a statement shared with POLITICO on Azure. Separately, it also said to be "aware of an issue affecting Windows devices" due to a Crowdstrike update. "We anticipate a resolution is forthcoming."

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