Geek Tested:

Olympic Fail: BSOD Makes Its Appearance at the Olympics

Posted 08/14/08 at 01:18:21 PM by Paul Lilly

The last thing you want to see while hanging from a wire high above a crowd of spectators is Microsoft's Blue Screen of Death lingering in mid-air, but that's exactly what happened to Li Ning, one of China's sporting greats. The incident took place during the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics, and as Ning geared up for the torch lighting climax inside the Bird's Nest, stadium projectors beamed the BSOD onto the roof where it was clearly visible for all to see.

The BSOD came as an unfortunate side effect to using specialized theatrical computer controlled lighting equipment to light up the Bird's Nest, making the process not only automated, but susceptible to software failures. But hey, at least Windows was only running the light show and not the high wire act!

Image Credit: Gizmodo

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Submitted by peterson0000 on Tue, 09/01/2009 - 11:58pm

Hi,

Nice article.....You know a very high % of BSODs are caused by bad drivers from hardware
vendors and from bad software. How do you know the BSOD was caused
specifically by Microsoft/Windows? It very well could have been a
Microsoft Windows problem, but odds are, it was more likely a software
problem.

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Symantec AV may be responsible for BSOD
Submitted by wisely on Fri, 08/22/2008 - 8:32pm

In May 2007, a similiar incident happen in China.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-05/20/content_6125876.htm

http://www.p2pnet.net/story/12279

Right after August 2008, my company, which is using Symantec also have many users who experience BSOD right after Symantec detected a Trojan and requested a reboot to delete virus.

So I suspect that the incident may be related.

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You'd think they'd change
Submitted by rayatwork05 on Fri, 08/15/2008 - 5:28am

You'd think they'd change the color of the BSOD =D Pink would have gone over much better.

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LOL
Submitted by Sever on Fri, 08/15/2008 - 1:13am

And thats exactly why all of the new lighting and sound companies are using MACs LOL.

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Windows Bsod
Submitted by Terdog on Thu, 08/14/2008 - 8:20pm

Are you serious? Man, talk about your epci epic fail.. I guess they wount be using vista in 2010!..

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BSOD
Submitted by Danduhman on Thu, 08/14/2008 - 7:47pm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rXWr6Ezax4 I believe this is the video you are talking about

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It was 98
Submitted by Fenthic on Thu, 08/14/2008 - 12:42pm

The BSOD appearing on Bill Gates was during the demo of Windows 98 not XP.

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the only thing that would
Submitted by dethdeks on Thu, 08/14/2008 - 11:56am

the only thing that would be funnier would have been if the computer used to show the "fireworks show" ended up bsod'ing in the middle of the fireworks , now that woulda been funny as hell.

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Good Job MicroSoft, you have
Submitted by sdcat on Thu, 08/14/2008 - 11:08am

Good Job MicroSoft, you have done it to an international level publically world wide. BSOD is something you should have fixed more than 12 years ago, 12 years!!!

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Yup I just dumped my $8K
Submitted by Antilogic81 on Thu, 08/14/2008 - 11:28am

Yup I just dumped my $8K computer into the trash when I saw this.......

Going to use Ubuntu to play Crysis now. Oh wait....

/Sarcasm

This is pretty funny but the video of Windows XP going to blue screen when Bill Gates was talking about it at a press conference is still better.

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Windows xp you sure? I
Submitted by sdcat on Thu, 08/14/2008 - 11:41am

Windows xp you sure? I thoguth that was Win98.

If you were making an important presentation lets say all the higher ups were there, and someone out of the "blue" humiliated you. That would not be funny at all, to both you and that someone.

Assuming this picture is true and leaked out, ...everyone would probably say never trust windows at all or at least on any special occation.

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that's not actually the real
Submitted by sirphunkee on Thu, 08/14/2008 - 10:40am

that's not actually the real blue screen of death though...it's a stand-in they used because the real one wasn't pretty enough ;)

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