The Microsoft revealed on Friday that Microsoft's Zune media players were functioning properly on Thursday as the New Year arrived, though they froze up on the last day of 2008 because of a glitch involving their internal clock. In spite of this, many were still complaining regarding the problems they face during operating the devices.

If adhered to the Microsoft spokesman Brian Eskridge, then the affected users of the 30-gigabyte Zune model were not having further problems after fully recharging their devices and powering them on again on Thursday, who arrived at this conclusion after taking into considerations the responses from customers and review of online message forums.

Eskridge, who has one of the 30-gigabyte Zune players and was temporarily without service said, “It worked for me and it seems like it's working for customers. From the limited time I've looked on the forums, it seems customers have had good success with it.”

However, it should be noted that by Thursday’s midmorning, several people were still complaining on one online Zune forum about their devices not booting up. Many people, whose devices were working, suggested to those still having problems, to be patient and let their devices fully charge before powering them on again.

On Wednesday, when people turned on the 30-gigabyte model, the device would freeze and wouldn't fully boot up, meaning users couldn't play music, videos and games or transfer material between their PCs and the devices. By the afternoon of Wednesday, the irritated users lit up Microsoft's online support forum for Zunes with more than 2,500 messages.

“The problem involved a bug in the model's internal clock driver that was related to how the device handles the extra day during a leap year. Last year was a leap year. When 2008 ended and 2009 began on Thursday, the internal clock automatically reset, said Eskridge.

“I don't know the technical details beyond that. I just know it didn't function yesterday,” he added.

The Zune media player is seen as answer to Apple Inc.'s iPod by the Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft and its price ranges from$99 to $249, depending on the storage capacity.