The global outage affecting Microsoft services reverberated around the world on Friday, upending services relied upon by millions of people. Parents struggled to contact their children’s schools, some government services faltered and many office workers could not access email as the disruptions stretched into a second day.

Microsoft said in updates early Friday that it was making progress in fixing the problem. By 7 a.m. Eastern, it said that service was being restored to users in the Asia Pacific region, and was improving for users in Europe and North America.

Still, major gaps persisted. A range of Microsoft tools were affected, including the email manager Microsoft Outlook, the workplace messaging and video calling app Microsoft Teams and the A.I. assistant Microsoft Copilot. By early Friday, Microsoft said that the core functions of Teams and Copilot were online.

Corporate offices, government agencies and other services in dozens of countries were forced to adapt as workers struggled to complete the everyday tasks intertwined with Microsoft products.

In Britain, the National Health Service said the outage was having a “disruptive impact” on its services. In Australia, intelligence and police forces said that their operations had been affected. Singapore told its taxpayers email capabilities had been disrupted, and the Supreme Court of the Philippines and the European Court of Human Rights said the outage could cause delays in their work.

“It shows how reliant we are on these cloud systems,” said Dr. Timothy Wood, a professor of computer science at George Washington University.

The disorder began on Thursday afternoon, as workers and offices around the world began reporting issues with a range of Microsoft tools and apps, including email and chat software. By Friday, some airlines and artificial intelligence companies also said they had been affected.

Around 7 a.m. on Friday, 18 hours into the disruption, Microsoft said that it had made “encouraging recovery progress in Europe,” that Japan was “more stable” and that services in North America were “also improving.”

However, it said people could still expect “intermittent issues” and listed around 20 of its products that were experiencing problems.

The company has said that it had seen “no evidence of malicious activity associated with this incident.”

The outage appeared to be more inconvenient than disastrous for many companies. Airlines including the Indian low-cost air carrier Indigo and South Africa’s CemAir reported disruptions, though neither said that its flight schedules had been affected.

Many universities, where staff and students rely heavily on Microsoft for email and coursework, issued notices and warnings. In New Zealand, the University of Auckland said that “scammers are sending fake texts and emails that appear to be from IT support or Microsoft relating to today’s outage.”

In Britain, hospitals, clinics and doctors’ offices pointed patients to the telephone for help. In Canada, the Unity Health hospital system in Toronto said in a statement that its staff members were having trouble sending and receiving email.

The artificial intelligence companies OpenAI and Anthropic said they were experiencing issues with their connections to Microsoft services on Friday. Workhorse Group Inc., a Michigan-based manufacturer listed on the Nasdaq index, delayed its quarterly earnings call, citing the outage.

The outage prompted frustration and anger — but some glee, too, for workers who suddenly had time on their hands. Memes and celebratory posts spread online, some jokingly rebranding the suite “Microsoft 364.”

On X and Reddit, users spoke of “a snow day for adults” and celebrated a quiet spell away from their inboxes.

Some companies saw the opportunity for a tongue-in-cheek pitch. Royal Mail, Britain’s beleaguered postal service, posted a photo of its distinctive red mailbox on social media with the message, “Ours is always open.” Even so, its website noted that some of its online services were unavailable because of the outage.

Hari Raj, Karla Adam and Lynsey Chutel contributed reporting.