Non-viral computer pranks

I wouldn't go quite that far, but desktop based tricks are quite fun. I've read some "blue screen of death" type ones somewhere, and I also saw a Windows based website called Windows RG that can be set on a full screen so that you leave it running when your sister wants to use the Net and she ends up getting really annoyed with the joke messages about deleting "essential" Windows files. Here's a link:

http://www.deanliou.com/WinRG/

A friend of mine in school made a simple program that would count down from 20 to zero threatening to unleash a virus when reaching zero. The user had a button to reset the counter to 20.

Not many people fell for it, but of the few that did we had one girl clicking for a good 15 minutes while trying to call the IT teacher out from the next room!

He put me back together said:

Hi folks...I know there are some other clowns among nerds out there...you know who you are...what kinds of "harmless" pranks do you guys like to pull on other people's PC's? The best one I know of is this:

1. Use alt + prntscrn to copy the desktop onto the clipboard.

2. Create a BMP file and paste the image of the desktop onto it.

3. Save the BMP file in the wallpaper folder.

4. Move all of the desktop icons to the recycle bin.

5. Set the BMP file as wallpaper.

6. Sit back and snicker as your victim clicks rapidly, over and over on his non-existant icons...then leave the room after he throws his machine out the window.

Click to expand...

why don't you post your IP address here & we'll see what we can do about it?

There are actually a few websites that offer free software based pranks. I had one on my computer once from a friend of mine that would randomly turn off and on the caps lock, num lock and scroll lock....haha. Very aggravating when you don't know what it is....

Another cute little trick is to go into the internet options and change the Temporary internet files folder into the desktop. When they get on and surf the web for an hour or tow and then close IE, they have a desktop full of cookies and image files....

At my office where we had network access to each other we used to have batch file wars....using copy files onto desktops, repeated copying of files to bring their machine to a crawl or changing wallpapers by renaming their existing wallpaper file, and my personal favorite was using an infinite repeating SMS messenger popup window......

Install a superior version of windows on their computer: Windows RG

http://www.deanliou.com/WinRG/

Ummm....all those are really cruel, except the one where you have to reset the counter to stop the virus
Umm...you could always pop a Knoppix CD into their CD-ROM drive. Next time they reboot they'll be in Linux Not only will it freak 'em out, but you'll have them using Linux!

Remap the icons for their favorite programs to launch something else or execute a harmless script.

Id give you my non-viral computer prank. But it involves a floppy disk and a pack of matches. And I don't think the mods would look too kindly on it.

These are great..I have to do this to my dad or sister sometime

Oh, here's one. Write up a program that:
When the user logs on gives him/her the message "Windows has been updated recently with an exciting new feature! Real physics for your mouse! Now your mouse will experience gravity. Yet another great improvement to the Windows Operating system."
Then start applying gravity to the mouse pointer
I'll have to whip up a program for that...


Oh, then there's the ye ole time make the computer burp every few minutes trick.

found from the web...


Change the Windows mouse sensitivity all the way down. It will take about 100 years to navigate around to get it fixed.


Switch the "M" and "N" keys on his computer. If the victim does alot of typing they'll be trying to figure it out all day long.


If you have access to their computer, change it to Chinese, Japanese or something where you HAVE to know where everything is in order to change it back, not something where you can just guess.


Go to the Control Panel and make the mouse left-handed.


Get a 20 minute long wav file and make it their shutdown sound, or their new e-mail sound.
--- and\or also ---
Make a startup wav file, absolute silence for about 5 minutes, then a series of sirens or something, then silence again, then gunshots or something.

You can edit accounts in Outlook Express, Lotus notes etc. and change their outgoing server address. Just add an extra period or change it to a comma. They will continually bounce outgoing mail.

Back in the days of 3.11, I would change the .wav files to play different things. If it was word processor, I would set the standard "ding" to something along the lines of, "You idiot!" for the spell checker. Used to drive my dad up a wall and it wasn't because he was "computer illiterate." He knew his stuff, just never cared to mess with the sounds.


@rdale04

Changing the positions of the keys on the keyboard wrong... but it's real fun if you're in a callcenter environment and your neighbor is something to be desired. You change a few keys around so they end up locking their accounts off the network for incorrect passwords. (Figure most of the people I work with post their passwords with plain view of their workstations)

Or when they're off to lunch, you unplug their keyboard and mouse. That is always good for a cheap laugh.

The best pranks I know of were (1) taking all the keys and rearranging them in alphabetical order and (2) unplugging the keyboard and mouse from the victim's computer and plugging another set into it.

You can really have a lot of fun with the second one and a dumb victim.

My brother is a huge fan of Diablo 2, and invests a great deal of time and effort into the game. Understandably, he can get irritated if interrupted at a vital moment. The game involves use of the ALT key, which on Windows machines is next to the WIN key. So I switch the two. Nett result isw that at inopportune moments, he hits the ALT key, only to have it dump him from the game.
Or you can tape over the bottom of an optical mouse. It is best to use a label which looks like it belongs there, such as a barcode or serial number label.