Share your computer pranks!

Comraddict said:
Proud user of net send since '96. Beat that!

heh, ok, 1993! haha

when i was in high school, i was doing a technical support cource through distance education, at school. i learned a little bit too much for my own good about the schools network, after fiddling around, i found the list of printers on the network through out the school, and one was in the room of my physics teacher, who was colour blind. i send a print job to his printer that printed off an image that only the class could see, but he coulden't! i think he laughed more than anyone in the class did when it happened (my friend was in his class at the time
 
I was dreading coming back to this thread, I thought I was going to be temp-banned for flaming. I'm sorry if I came across a bit harsh; that happens when you're doped up on flu-meds. :D

Yeah, I know viruses use VBS. Makes me nuts to have to make Norton exceptions to run scripts. I know VB, VBS just takes a little getting used to. (So dumbed-down! Geez...)
 
How did I know this would happn, in my high school there are 140 odd students, bout 40 computers spread over 2 rooms, i am fairly good mates with my IT teacher (admin of network, etc) we have a game goin where i put sumn on- he bloks it, it when on for ages with solitaire, untill i learnt how to rename the process name- now that is on every single PC desktop- btw is it possible to increase the icon size of just 1 icon, not all of them? Anyway, point is, he wouldnt have to trace it to my login, but mearly ask...any way- to cut my long life story short, just a joke, but if you dont want to help thats fine, but no need to get agressive..

Any help greatly apreciated.
 
Ok so this is amusing if ur standing right behind someone and watching them do this. and its something simple to do. so here it goes

1. Go to your desktop (background you see as soon as you open up your computer, has all the icons)
2. on your key board, press "prtsc-sysrq" (print screen)
3. go to paint, then either hit ctrl-v, or go to edit, then click paste
4. you should have a picture of your back ground on the screen
5. save it, then set it as the background
6. you should go back to your desktop, and see that nothing has changed, if you did this correctly, move some of the icons around
7. There should be 2 of each icon on the desktop. you can mix it up a bit by moving some icons around in paint
8. so the owner of the comp will be clicking around and wondering why the icons arent working.

As i said its somethign for everyone, so enjoy
 
I do believe that one was said on the first page of this thread.

The shutdown command in cmd is also loads of fun if you know the names of computers on your school network. Especially fun when you shutdown the neighboring teachers computer while he's in the middle of a presentation.

Also: vbs script to change logon screen color to hot pink. Works wonders, and if your school tech is stupid enough, thats how the comps will stay for the entirety of the school year.
 
If they have a desktop PC, you can open up the tower and unplug the hard drive. (Make sure ot only wiggle it out, so it only looks plugged in) When they try to boot it up next they'll get an error that their hard drive is missing, yet when the computer tech guy comes to look at it, it will still be there.
 
When I was younger and knew how to code very simply (I can't now), I made this thing that popped up an error -- "Press A Key."
it only closed when you pressed the "A" key.

I wish I could re-create it.

P.S. If anyone feels up to it, I'd be very grateful!

EDIT: All right, I made an omission here. I forgot to mention that if you didn't press the correct key -- the "A" key -- it would say, "No, you idiot, you're supposed to press the 'A' key!"
 
On the Macs in my grade school (7th grade) they had a crappy game called Oregon Trail. I edited it with ResEdit so instead of "John has broken his arm" - "John sprained his wrist masturbating" and instead of "Jane has come down with the flu" - "Jane has come down with gonorrhea". Stuff like that. It was fun. :)

Oregon Trail was my first RPG. Stupid nostalgia factor causes me to think it was good. :(
 
Moderator Action: Moved to computer talk....

Under windows 3.1, a good one was to change the setting in win.ini to "shell=clock.exe". User would start 'windows' and get a full-screen clock with no way to stop it.

I've done that except with civ2.exe instead of clock. Hilarity ensues. There's still a registry setting in XP that allows you to change the shell... I forget exactly what it is, but I once changed the shell on an XP computer to Program Manager (the shell from Windows 3.1, which for some reason is still included in XP)

Haha, that is a good one! I tested it in XP and it is quite funny to see Minesweeper start up with Windows instead of Explorer! Not sure how many people I could fool with it - explorer.exe hasn't been starting on some of the school computers so lots of people are becoming versed in starting it from Task Manager - but Minesweeper or a similar program starting with Windows would be worth some laughs for sure.

I found instructions for how to do it in XP here.

The pink logon screen one is nice, too. I never use logon/logoff, but I think I'll leave it pink for awhile - nice and bright relative to the traditional blue.

Another good one is the Blue Screen of Death Screensaver. Never actually tried it on someone else, but I've had several people alert me to something being wrong with my computer when I've had that screensaver running.

edit: Whoa, that shell one was better than I'd realized! Explorer doesn't want to start at all, even from Task Manager - all I get is a "My Documents" explorer window (which does function properly), but no Taskbar or anything of that sort. And the media control buttons on my laptop aren't functioning. Looks like it might be more effective prank than I'd expected.

edit2: Just noticed that as soon as I close "Sound and Audio Properties" from the Control Panel, the sound reverts to what it was before the last reboot. Wicked! And for some reason whenever I open a folder from Task Manager, I get a nice little error like this (though the folder does open):



Now if you could get that prompt and have it not open C:\Windows at the same time, that would be even better!
 
Actually this was stealing, but I didn't intend it as such in the beginning:


I wanted to make a prank to one guy that hated me in middle school, so I made a smallish .bat program that started a small sexy pic of some actress and a notepad document saying various kinds of confusing inflamatory stuff (presents itself as an anti-virus, etc), and then starts itself. Of course the computer ran out of RAM pretty soon... but it lasted enough to give the user time to read the .txt document and the pic.

The cascading windows result was absolutely beautiful. It looked like animation! Then I edited the registers to make it start each time the user would start the computer (shamefully, I tried to do that again 1 month ago and I found out I forgot how to). It was even more beautiful. Then the guy actually payed me to get rid of that, since I was the most knowledgeable in computers from the school I was at (I was at a music school). So I just started the computer in Safe Mode and deleted the file, because I knew what file it was. It was hidden deep into the Windows folder, BTW, with a name like kcolumn_align2553.tmp.bat. Then I re-edited the registry back. That took me 5 minutes, but of course I pretended it took half an hour, in which the guy brought me food, drinks, etc. :goodjob:
 
I often tell annoying people on IM if they wanna see something cool, to hit the Windows key and hit U twice. Thus, it shuts down their computer!
 
For this you need a laptop, access to internet in a densely populated area, and knowledge of an Islamic sounding prayer. Just follow these instructions:

1) Open your laptop, turn it on, connect to internet.
2) Open this http://www.thecleverest.com/countdown.swf
3) Close your eyes and start your prayer.

This is not my own prank but I found it on the internet. I do not take any responsibility for any consequences dealt through these actions so don't blame me :D

Also for the network pranks, at my school all the computers are labeled and we can message them, turn them off, or generally mess with them.
 
For this you need a laptop, access to internet in a densely populated area, and knowledge of an Islamic sounding prayer. Just follow these instructions:

1) Open your laptop, turn it on, connect to internet.
2) Open this http://www.thecleverest.com/countdown.swf
3) Close your eyes and start your prayer.

This is not my own prank but I found it on the internet. I do not take any responsibility for any consequences dealt through these actions so don't blame me :D

Also for the network pranks, at my school all the computers are labeled and we can message them, turn them off, or generally mess with them.

Dont ever actually do this prank. You're very likely to get arrested at the very least, and if faced with a very active public, severely beaten and possibly killed. You never know how people will react when they think they're in extreme danger.

I know a guy who did something similar as a joke: He wore a turban and a t-shirt with a print of TNT. He got tackled by 2 cops because some 'samaritain' called the police to report a terrorist.
 
Dont ever actually do this prank. You're very likely to get arrested at the very least, and if faced with a very active public, severely beaten and possibly killed. You never know how people will react when they think they're in extreme danger.

I know a guy who did something similar as a joke: He wore a turban and a t-shirt with a print of TNT. He got tackled by 2 cops because some 'samaritain' called the police to report a terrorist.

Ya I know this isn't really meant to be tried just funny to think about. :lol:
 
Ya I know this isn't really meant to be tried just funny to think about. :lol:

I dont find anything funny with using that stereotype. But alas, if I did that joke and started praying in latin, how many people would even give me a second glance? It wasn't funny the first time I saw it, its not funny now. Its rude and and ignorant towards Muslims.

/rant. Sorry for the derail, but this is a subject I feel strongly about.
 
I dont find anything funny with using that stereotype. But alas, if I did that joke and started praying in latin, how many people would even give me a second glance? It wasn't funny the first time I saw it, its not funny now. Its rude and and ignorant towards Muslims.

/rant. Sorry for the derail, but this is a subject I feel strongly about.

This isn't my own creation so I can't speak for whoever made it but I think it is making fun of the american stereotype and how they jump to conclusions and stereotype everyone who looks different. I have no problems with Muslims or anyone else who looks different from the majority of people(which, where I live, is Canadians). I thought that maybe someone would get a laugh thinking how people would react to it.
 
In XP Pro, you can quickly f**k with a computer: Ctrl-Alt-Del, Tab, Tab, Enter, Enter. Restarts the comp.

Stealthily unplugging various cables (especially peripherals and ethernet) can cause some serious confusion.

 
Just a few minutes ago, I put a little piece of packing tape over the bottom of mom's optical mouse, so the cursor is stuck. You could probably do this in an old-school ball mouse by removing the ball.

I wish at school I could put Knoppix discs in the drive, but the BIOS is "locked", so you can see the BIOS screen but nothing happens if you press any keys (except enter, which just exits the BIOS and boots up Windows)

I've also thought maybe you could put an icon on the screen that *looks* like a commonly used program, but actually shuts down the computer.
 
Oldest one in the book: tell someone that to see something cool, press Alt+F4.
 
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