Need a good computer prank

[The Sauce]

I am in the middle of a prank war with a friend at work and I'm looking for suggestions. I need a harmless prank that is subtle but will make it mildly irritating for him to use his workstation. The first thing he will do is call our IS so it can't be anything that will be easy to identify or fix and no permanent damage to hardware, of course. Ideas?

 

[MarkXIX]

Annoy-a-tron inside his computer or nearby.

 

[Rage187]

Swap the m and the n on his keyboard.

 

[shabby]

Tiny piece of tape over the laser of the mouse.
Tiny piece of tape covering a few "pins" on the network cable.

 

[IronWing]

It takes a bit to set up but is very satisfying.

1) Get a screenshot of his desktop.
2) Make a custom error message in your favorite image software and paste it to the screenshot of his desktop.
3) Replace his desktop background image with the modified version.

The error message I liked was "The file pornstar.jpg is in use by another program and can not be closed."

 

[IronWing]

Does he generally have his sound on and use incoming mail tones? Replace his default mail tone with the same tone but with an extended silence followed by a fart noise added to the end.

 

[Rakehellion]

1. Get your friend a job as a Subway spokesperson.
2. Put child porn on his computer.

Profit.

 

[Newell Steamer]

Place a rotting carcass in the ceiling plenum over his desk. And position it, so if he checks, the diseased ridden corpse will fall on him when he pushes the ceiling panel up.

Hilarity will ensue as he screams and most likely vomits in horror and disgust.

 

[Kaido]

Fake Clippy:

http://www.rjlpranks.com/pranks/clippy/

 

[Sho'Nuff]

Swap the m and the n on his keyboard.

PC prank USB stick

https://gadgetsandgear.com/ultimate-pc-prank-master/

I can also recommend the annoyatron. If there is a good place to hide it, it can be extremely annoying. I speak from experience, as one of my co-workers somehow managed to hide one in an air conditioning return in my office, which is roughly 20 feet off the ground (my office is in an old mill building with super high ceilings). The damn thing would say "can you hear me" at random intervals, causing me to look around for it. Due to its placement, the noise sounded like it was coming from a different location each time it played. As a result, it took me literally two weeks to find it.

Another good one is to edit their autocorrect settings in word so as to replace a common word with something funny. E.g., to replace "the" with "the baby vagina."

 

[Slew Foot]

It takes a bit to set up but is very satisfying.

1) Get a screenshot of his desktop.
2) Make a custom error message in your favorite image software and paste it to the screenshot of his desktop.
3) Replace his desktop background image with the modified version.

The error message I liked was "The file pornstar.jpg is in use by another program and can not be closed."

i like something similar, take a screenshot of the desktop and use that as the background image. then hide all of the real icons, so theres nothing to click on. then watch as they diuble/triple/quadruple click all of icons on the background image and wonder ehy nothing happens.

 

[akugami]

Task Scheduler. Make random crap start during the work day. Use your imagination, like funny web pages, random software, that sorta thing. Bonus: Have the web page Rick Roll your buddy.

Fake error messages. Create a text file and copy everything in the quotes to a new text file, 'x = msgBox("Message Body",,"Windows Title")', after that, save the text file with extension vbs. Make multiple fake error messages and combine this with the task scheduler for added fun so it seems like his computer is full of errors.

Modify his cursor. Modify the stock pointer cursor to one that is the spinning circle busy cursor.

Keyboard layout. Set his keyboard to Dvorak layout.

 

[88keys]

If his desktop is running Windows 7 and is set to run rotating wallpapers I'd throw in a few pics in his wallpapers folder. It would be funny because it wouldn't be noticeable right away.

 

[postmortemIA]

1. replace his task manager with some other app. Try explorer.exe
2. change his desktop theme with something ridiculous (large text + all pink fonts) and then disable theme changing

 

[QueBert]

this is the best office PC prank I've ever pulled, and I've pulled too many to remember. This won't work in a lot of offices, but if they have a similar setup it's pure comedy gold.

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2134655&highlight=prank

 

[angminas]

 

[matricks]

I've had a plan for a while to make a script that is called as a scheduled task e.g. every minute, rolls a dice to determine if it will quit or do something, and if the diceroll is right it types out random characters or words.

There are probably lots of tools that do this, but the key to success (for me) is being able to stuff the entire script within the scheduled task itself. Our computers block launching arbitrary scripts (even .ps1-files, our IT guys are with the times), so I'm limited to what I can call directly on the command line.

 

[michal1980]

Can't believe you have this much access to someone's pc. At work we are trained to lock ours whenever we walk away, and they lock after 10 min if not used

 

[NetWareHead]

Lemon party desktop wallpaper

 

[vi edit]

Modify host file.
Redirect google to bing.
Redirect facebook to myspace.
Redirect *whatever site* to *another site*

Sit back and enjoy the lols.

 

[cyclohexane]

If on Linux: alias all of the shell commands to rm - f *


Just kidding don't do that.

 

[Sheik Yerbouti]

Swap the m and the n on his keyboard.

J and K keys are also a good swap

 

[purbeast0]

you should do the classic where you take a screenshot of his desktop, move everything off of his desktop, make the screenshot his background, then hide the program bar at the bottom of the screen. he will wonder why the fuck clicking on nothing works.

swapping keys is dumb, unless you work with people who have to look to type. you could remove the letters from every key on most people's keyboards at my job and no one would have their productivity slowed down.

 

[glenn1]

Install Real Media player with auto updates enabled and all email notification boxes checked, and allow the program to change settings to force all media to be opened by it.

 

[Udgnim]

whatever causes Outlook to lock up until you press the ESC button

assuming he doesn't know to press the ESC button