On Saturday, the $1.15 billion Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas showed a Windows error message on one of its screens. First the screen went blank, then there was some ASCII text shown, and finally the screen stated that "Windows did not shut down successfully." Such a message can be displayed if one holds down the power button to hard-restart a Windows PC, so the message alone doesn't mean there was a crash, but viewers at the stadium insist there was gibberish on the screen just before the computer showed the message.

The message showed up during the NCAA season opener for Oklahoma and Brigham Young University. No. 20 BYU upset the third-ranked Sooners 20-13 in Jerry Jones' brand-new monument to Dallas Cowboys football and Texas excess. One of the highlights of Cowboys Stadium is the enormous HD display hung above the field. Along with the performance of the Sooners offense, the "Windows did not shut down successfully" message was one of the lowlights of the night.

This isn't the first time that Microsoft has suffered such an embarrassment, and it likely won't be the last. Too bad we don't know what iteration of Windows the PC was running, as we could probably lay the blame on an outdated version.

Listing image by Gizmodo