The 25 Best High-Tech Pranks
Everyone loves a good laugh, and in the age of electronics, high-tech hijinks are just waiting to be pulled off. So snuggle up to your screen and get ready to unleash all sorts of shenanigans as we present the 25 best high-tech pranks known to man. Our apologies in advance to your friends and co-workers.
1. The Restart Remap
We start with one sure to throw off even the most advanced Windows user. Setup is simple and you need only a few seconds alone on someone’s computer. When you get a chance, sneak over and right-click your pal’s icon to Internet Explorer or some other commonly used program. Edit the properties and change the target to: “%windir%\system32\shutdown.exe -r -t 00″ Now, every time your buddy tries to run IE, his machine will mysteriously restart — and your laughter will instantly result.
2. Startup Folder Fun
While we’re on the topic of system startups, the Windows Startup folder is a fantastic place for fun. Create a text file with an amusing message and throw it in there so your cubicle mate will get a daily greeting — or, if you really want to get evil, add in the restart shortcut from above (not recommended unless you just want to get your ass kicked).
3. Disappearing Desktop
A classic computer prank never goes out of style. The desktop image trick has been around for a bit, but rest assured: There are plenty of unsuspecting victims still to be found. Just head over to an unattended computer, minimize all the windows, and hit the Print Screen key. Paste the captured image into any graphic editing program — even Microsoft Paint will do — then save the file and set it as the desktop background. Then, all you have to do is hide the actual icons on the desktop — put them in a folder somewhere — and your victim will try endlessly to click the nonexistent icons, which are actually just part of the background image. For another variation, leave one program open when you capture the screen and watch as the person tries to click on it, type in it, and close it to no avail.
4. Auto-Insult
There are few things funnier than forcing a friend to insult himself — and Microsoft has made it easy to do just that. Take a moment to edit the Autocorrect feature in your colleague’s Word or Outlook (it’s in the Tools menu in both programs). Add a new entry to replace their name with “douche,” and watch how much more interesting all their emails and documents will suddenly become. A little creativity can take this one in plenty of different and equally entertaining directions.
5. Serius Buisness
While you’re in the Word or Outlook settings, another good place to tamper is the dictionary. Replace a few correct words with common misspellings just for giggles. Just be sure to let this one play out and get resolved before your co-worker sends any official memos to the entire corporation.
6. Annoying Audio
A small investment will have a big payoff with the ThinkGeek Annoy-a-Tron. This little $10 gadget can brighten even the dreariest of offices. It looks like a computer part, but when you flip the switch, this fella sends out annoying beeps and buzzes at random intervals. You can toggle between different grating sounds, too. The thing is magnetic, so you just slap it on the back of someone’s computer and watch them try to figure out where that awful noise is coming from (hint: they never will).
7. Phantom of the Office
Taking the Annoy-a-Tron up a notch, the Phantom Keystroker actually plugs into a USB port and then makes random key presses or mouse movements every few minutes. You can control the frequency and the kind of emissions. For $25, this may be worth every penny — especially if you can write it off as a business expense.
8. Manual Control
If your budget doesn’t have a tab for “pranking gadgets,” you can always go the manual route and utilize the USB port to attach a second mouse to a neighboring tower. This works especially well with a person across from you, if you can get under your desk and access the back of their computer. Plug in, wiggle away, and watch them squirm. Added points if you have a wireless mouse.
9. The Speaker Swap
Since you’re already under the desk, try out another switcheroo: the speaker swap. Just plug their speakers into your computer. Now start playing something like a low-frequency heartbeat sound on loop and see how long they try to stop the nuisance on their computer. For a more powerful variation, don’t switch the actual wires, but instead just swap out one of your speakers — preferably the one without the volume control — with theirs. Now they’ll still hear their own system sounds from the remaining speaker, and as an added bonus, they’ll have no way to control the volume of your annoying antics.
10. The Wrath of Rotation
A simple but quick and always amusing prank is putting the screen rotation hotkeys to uses Microsoft never intended. Just run by a co-worker’s desk, reach over and hit Ctrl-Alt-up or down to rotate their monitor orientation. If you have some alone time, you can one-up it by also going into the Control Panel and setting their mouse to left-handed. They’ll spend 10 minutes with their head tilted sideways trying to figure out what the hell is going on.
11. Mousing Around
The laser mouse may have ended the era of mouse-ball stealing, but it opened up another option. Stick a few layered pieces of transparent tape on the bottom side of your friend’s mouse to really mess with its functionability. Or, for bonus points, tape a small Post-It note that says “Why won’t my mouse work?” over the laser.
12. A Pointer Pointer
Another great mouse prank awaits you in the Control Panel. Under the “Mouse” settings’ “Pointer” tab, change the default mouse pointer to the hourglass. Suddenly, the system is always busy working! What’s going on?!
13. Mousing Around
Spend some more time in the “Mouse” settings and you’ll find more fun to be had. Try switching out a pal’s primary and secondary button functions for full confusion, or move the pointer speed to either extreme fast or extreme slow to give them some extreme frustration.
14. Phone Fun
Let’s shift to the phone for a bit. First, a service that never gets old: PrankDial.com. Just surf over and enter a friend’s phone number. You can pick from a bunch of different voices and styles, then enter any message you want, and it’ll call them and say it aloud. You can pull three of these pranks every day at no charge, which ought to leave you plenty of obnoxious options.
15. Telephone Twist
Two other sites bring a different twist to telephone troubles. TeleSpoof.com and SpoofCard.com let you call anyone and have whatever number you want show up in CallerID. See how confused your girlfriend gets when you call her cell phone…from her cell phone. Each service only lets you make three calls per phone number before they make you pay, but that’s enough to give you ample amusement. Oh, and it’s still legal, though that might change — so get on this while you can.
16. Bluetooth Blues
“The Office” popularized our next prank, and man, is it ever a winner. Grab your co-worker’s cell phone when they leave it sitting around and pair your Bluetooth headset up to it. Now you can take and make all their calls. Jim Halpert, you are one wise dude.
17. Customized Commotion
Know anyone with the kind of cell phone that displays a customizable message on the main screen? This next one’s for them. When you can, go into their phone’s settings and change the message to “NO SERVICE.” Guaranteed reaction upon their return.
18. Remote Control
Back to the computer for some more advanced antics. This one may be more suited for a close friend or significant other, as you’ll have to install something, and you could probably get fired for doing it at work. Set up a VNC (virtual network computing) server on their system. You can find free ones like TightVNC for Windows or OSXvnc for Macs. Once you get through the configuration, you can click, type, and do anything on their system from your own computer. Do some subtle things like occasional keypresses or program launches and see how perplexed they become. We don’t recommend keeping this up for long, though, or you may suffer serious consequences with their anger (and you may also witness some disturbing pornographic habits as an unintended side effect).
19. The Modern-Day Poltergeist
The less invasive alternative to that idea is a program called Office Poltergeist, and it’s now available as a simple Firefox extension. Once you get this baby installed, you can play annoying sounds, load new web pages, shake windows around, and send popup messages on someone else’s computer. It even has a feature to replace every instance of a word on a web page with another word of your choosing. We suggest swapping “internet” for “intercourse.”
20. Printing Power
If you’re network-savvy, jot this next one down. Do a little investigative work and figure out where your office’s network printer folder is located. Once you have that nugget of info, you’re golden. Navigate over to that path, select any printer, and click connect. You now have the power to print and send random paper messages to other areas of your office with no explanation.
21. Screen Scream
Our next prank comes courtesy of Microsoft, surprisingly enough. The programmers there released an office “Blue Screen of Death” simulator. Install the screensaver on an unsuspecting IT guy’s PC and see the feared symbol of system error pop up after a few minutes of inactivity.
22. Bad Vision
On the subject of screens, the Windows Control Panel provides our next opportunity for mischief. Go into the advanced settings and try shifting the brightness all the way down and the contrast all the way up if you really want to mess with a visionary’s vision.
23. Crazy Keys
Want to drive your friend crazy with his own keyboard? Visit the Regional and Language Settings under the Windows Control Panel for some fun. An arguably insane guy named August Dvorak created an alternate keyboard layout that — big surprise — never took off. But you can still access it and make normal typing impossible. Just go under the Languages tab, click Details, then Add, and you’ll find the option to completely remap the keyboard.
24. Rules of Pranking
Outlook Rules, as a general rule, can make for great pranks. Try setting up one on your co-worker’s computer so that any email from you causes a festive sound to be played, a hard copy to be printed, and a copy to be instantly forwarded back to them for extra emphasis. There are plenty more variations you can try once that combo gets old.
25. Hotkey Hell
Our final prank may be the most tortuous of all. A little program called AutoHotKey — quite the handy utility for legitimate purposes — lets you assign all sorts of macros to key combinations of your choosing. You don’t even have to install anything on anyone else’s computer, as you create the scripts on your own system and can then convert them to executable files that you simply run on another machine. With some very basic scripting, you can cause any string of text to be automatically replaced with something else, regardless of what program the person is in. You can also remap basic hotkeys like Ctrl-P to do anything you want — like open Outlook and send a message to you letting you know how awesome you are. Spend some time with this one and you’ll find enough pranks to keep your hijinks on high output.
So there you have it: the 25 best high-tech pranks. Use them well and use them wisely — and don’t come to us if anyone inflicts physical harm upon you as a result.
June 17th, 2008 at 7:14 pm
Looks like 25 reasons to get your butt kicked
June 17th, 2008 at 7:32 pm
Looks quite funny, bookmarked for future references
June 17th, 2008 at 10:31 pm
An idea based on the autohotkey one:
If you know the guys’s password for anything, change the password, and use that program to map the old password string to the new one. He should still be able to log in, but since he never types the old password in the clear, it should be undetectable. Except now he won’t be able to log in from any other machine that doesn’t have the hotkey mapper installed.
June 18th, 2008 at 12:32 am
For #3, instead of putting their icons in a folder somewhere, create a new file on the bottom right corner of their desktop, select all, then drag it to the top left. Everything that used to be on the desktop should now be somewhere up and to the left of the visible desktop space. Simply delete the new file and you’re done.
Of course, “auto-arrange” and so on will need to be set appropriately.
A better idea altogether, though, is to not move their icons at all - leave them sitting over the top of the pictures of them on the desktop.
June 18th, 2008 at 12:59 am
On any Windows machine, and accessed through Control Panel, set the system font to white.
June 18th, 2008 at 1:02 am
On the subject of OutLook rules, there’s one prank that quite happily kill an entire LAN for an afternoon. [one way of getting the afternoon off.]
1. set outlook rules on Computer A to forward all mail from Computer B back to Computer B.
2. Set outlook rule on Computer B to forward all mail from computer A back to computer A.
3. Send a email from A to B, and make sure everyone else in the office is included in the CC.
Sit back, and watch the mail server melt down.
Note, it’s probably a good idea to do this on your last day of work there… because if you get caught, it will be the last day you work there!
June 18th, 2008 at 1:08 am
The first one. The Restart switch?
IE is a bad example to use. Most users have the special shell link to IE. (The one that pulls up Internet Properties when you right click -> Properties)
Anything else than IE and you’re golden.
June 18th, 2008 at 1:11 am
I could not help myself from busting out with laughter a few times when I read this. They are great pranks. I can’t wait to try some of them.
June 18th, 2008 at 1:19 am
hilarious. i ve gotta try some of these.
June 18th, 2008 at 2:12 am
Acquired 2 Annoy-a-Trons.
Well worth it.
My wife’s boss was tearing his office apart for days. He started hanging out on the production floor because just the thought of going back to his office made his forehead start twitching. He’d sit..hunched over the desk, then when it’d go off, he jump up and scream WHAT THE F*CK IS GOING ON AROUND HERE!!!????
Great fun. Total Win.
#10 didn’t work on the Vista, XP home or Pro machines here, btw. Bummer. Requires a particular GPU?
June 18th, 2008 at 3:19 am
My favourite is unpluging the mouse and keyboard but making sure it looks like its plugged in. Then setting the screensaver to look like a cracked LCD. This will make sure your co-worker flips out.
June 18th, 2008 at 3:41 am
The best part about changing the keyboard layout to Dvorak is that the hotkey to switch back is very easy to push without the coworker noticing. When they ask you to take a look at it, simply hit the key combo to switch it and type out a few lines normally, then switch it back using the same key combo when you stand. I had my parents fooled for a month with this one.
June 18th, 2008 at 4:58 am
Quite funny
June 18th, 2008 at 5:36 am
Just out of curiosity, how would one fix the “2. Startup folder fun” prank?
June 18th, 2008 at 7:44 am
26. Using a screwdriver (or just about any pointed tool) take out from victim’s keyboard a couple of keys and swap them. Best result is achieved swapping M and N. Fast and effective.
June 18th, 2008 at 8:03 am
Good tips although I would have like more detailed information to how they are done. For example, where is the Windows Startup folder? Never seen that in all my years on the computer.
June 18th, 2008 at 8:38 am
Awesome list. I find that the best thing to do with autohotkey is to just simply change one key to another. For instance, I got my sister PISSED by changed the a key to the s key, and then the g key to caps lock. It just made it so a LOT of stuff was impossibly to type, and caps would get “randomly” turned on.
So classic.
June 18th, 2008 at 1:22 pm
For number three the easiest thing way to hide the desktop icons is to just right click on the desktop and under “Arrange Icons By” uncheck “Show Desktop Icons”.
Then to fix it when the person has been driven to the bink of insanity just recheck and everything is back to normal.
This really is a classic.
June 18th, 2008 at 1:43 pm
lol Pretty nice collection! I will have to try a few of these! Thanks!
June 18th, 2008 at 1:45 pm
I wrote a great tip about Microsoft Outlook and using rules to fire external programs. Specifically my little example shows how to setup a rule to shutdown a computer using an email with a specially crafted subject line.
Here is the link:
http://bossmanthe.blogspot.com/2008/04/how-to-shutdown-your-computer-windows.html
June 18th, 2008 at 2:02 pm
Great List.
To Andy(18):
All of the pranks are perfectly well explained. I would expect anyone to be able to find the startup folder. Unless if in all your ‘Years on the computer’ you never learned to open the start menu.
My advice is for you learn to use a computer before you try to prank someone with it.
June 18th, 2008 at 2:09 pm
Andy, if you don’t know where the Windows Startup folder is (try Start / Programs / Startup duh) you certainly don’t need to be surfing THIS site !!!
June 18th, 2008 at 2:21 pm
@Bill Vincent, if I’m not mistaken, the rotation hotkeys are actually a function of the graphics card, not Windows itself. Ctrl-alt-(arrow key) are fairly standard, but they may not be absolute. Try checking in Control Panel -> Display -> Settings -> Advanced and you ought to be able to find something.
And as far as the Annoy-o-Trons, I thought about getting a second one myself — just to leave buried in an old boss’s office on my last day. I should have done that…damn.
June 18th, 2008 at 2:28 pm
@Paco, you can always start up Windows in “safe mode” (by pressing F8 while your computer is booting up), then go in and remove the item from the folder. Hey, like I said…not one to try unless you’re looking for a beating!
June 18th, 2008 at 2:28 pm
@Andy, look under your “Programs” list in the Windows Start menu.
June 18th, 2008 at 2:31 pm
@Merry Prankster, my old office cohorts and I tried something similar to that once — with the IT guy’s unofficial blessing, believe it or not! The network there evidently had a preventative measure in place, though, because after a single back-and-forth forward, it stopped. We were really looking forward to that endless loop, too…
June 18th, 2008 at 3:31 pm
I do the dvorak thing all the time … I actually _use_ dvorak (and let me tell you, if you’re still stuck with qwerty, you are working too hard). You should see my co-workers frustration when they try to ‘quickly use’ any of my workstations.
June 18th, 2008 at 3:36 pm
Another cell phone trick:
Get someone’s phone and change your contact name to service provider’s name. Then later, send a message to them as you are the service provider.
I used this trick on my college friends many times. I took one of my friend’s phone, and changed my contact name to
“Vodafone IN”
(that’s Vodafone’s service name in India)
Later I send many messages to him like “Please pay your bill immediately”, “Your number is under inspection” etc.
When the message is delivered to him, it displays
“1 new message from Vodafone IN”
When he opens, it is : “Please pay your bill immediately”.
And for a surprise, he paid his bill on the next day itself!!!
June 18th, 2008 at 3:42 pm
Please do this at your workplace because the follow up article on how you were fired is going to be hilarious. May all IT people who read smile at the justification to finally get rid of joe a%%hole who wastes IT’s time.
June 18th, 2008 at 7:54 pm
@Vishnu — Nice one. I may have to give that a whirl.
@Jojo — Discretion is certainly required in any pranking situation, be it high-tech or old-fashioned. There’s always a risk of rubbing someone the wrong way if you aren’t careful, whether it’s the IT guy or the janitor. Personally, I rarely bother pulling jokes on anyone who I don’t think will find amusement in the results themselves. For me, truly pissing someone off or making their lives difficult is not the fun part — it’s having a good laugh with someone over a hilarious scenario.
June 19th, 2008 at 1:26 am
About a month ago, a manager out at our mill found one of those Annoy-a-trons in the bottom of a box of tissues (after about 2 weeks). No one would confess to it, even when he wasn’t around. Now that I know it came from ThinkGeek (awesome site), I have a very good idea about who did it. (BUSTED HC!!)
You got some of the classics and some I have not seen before. Great list!!
Al
June 19th, 2008 at 5:57 am
I wouldn’t recommend placing a magnet on the back of a computer, as directed in prank #6.
June 19th, 2008 at 9:26 pm
“We start with one sure to throw off even the most advanced Windows user.” … “Right-click your pal’s icon to Internet Explorer or some other commonly used program.”
Surely even the not so advanced users (at long as they aren’t complete idiots) will be using firefox?
Just a thought
June 19th, 2008 at 10:17 pm
?
June 20th, 2008 at 2:33 am
On #8, Manual Control, I suggest plugging your keyboard cord into the back of their computer (works best if their computer is back-to-back with yours) and typing. What YOU type on your keyboard shows up on their screen. I did this once in a typing class many moons ago, and here’s how it played out:
Me (this displays on friend’s screen): This is your computer.
Friend: What…?
Me: You type terribly, you know. You’re frustrating me.
Friend: Oh my god! Guys, check this out!
Me: Stop telling them to look at me. This is between you and I.
Friend: AAAH!
You can see the fun this creates. Just don’t blow it by starting to giggle like crazy, that’s what I did.
June 20th, 2008 at 3:09 am
These are priceless! I’m saving the list.
June 20th, 2008 at 8:40 am
An even better version of #23 is to change the keyboard language to romanian. It is almost undetectable, except it swaps the letters y and z (ie you push y and it comes up with z) and generally messes with the punctuation. I have seen it work so many times, it is awesome.
June 20th, 2008 at 12:00 pm
Jake(#39), placing a magnet the strength of a fridge magnet is quite fine. The media most susceptible to magnets were floppy disks and they aren’t used anymore. Hard disks have quite a bit of resistance against outside magnetic influence, and due to the way the computer cases are designed, the magnets placed on the back of a computer would be too far away from the hard disk anyway. So it’s pretty safe most of the time. I’d be a bit worried if the system houses magnetic backup tapes, however.
June 20th, 2008 at 12:40 pm
One more for you …
Press the Shift key 5 times to activate StickyKeys and click on the Settings button. In the “Display” tab, click on “Use High Contrast”.
Great fun.
June 20th, 2008 at 12:44 pm
Oh, wait, one more for you. If you only have a minute for a quick prank, press and hold the Win key (usually between the Alt and Control keys) and “E” at the same time. This is the standard hotkey for Window’s Explorer.
Press the combination and hold it down. The rapid key repeat will cause dozens of explorer windows to open at once. Your victim will have to close each one when he gets back.
June 20th, 2008 at 2:34 pm
@Mak, thanks for stopping by. I too would like to think most non-dolts would be on Firefox by now. Sadly (and rather inexplicably), plenty of people are still using IE, though! In any case, it was just a random example — feel free to apply the same concept to any ol’ icon that fits your fancy.
June 20th, 2008 at 2:36 pm
@Kat, laughter control is the toughest trick of all, isn’t it? I don’t think keeping a straight face ever gets any easier…
June 20th, 2008 at 3:53 pm
Here’s another one you can try if you’re in a LAN and your victim has a printer. If you have some time on his or her pc, set it up so that their printer’s shared on the network. Then while they’re working on the computer, have it print something from your own pc. I suggest: “I know what you did last summer.” This works best with people who had no idea you could share printers ;). Suggested situation to pull of this prank: female victim late at night in a dorm working on her computer.
June 20th, 2008 at 4:33 pm
One we pulled on a buddy of mine at work is to pop the keys off his keyboard and rearrange them. This works really well with anal-retentive people. Just be subtle, swap the square bracket keys or inverse the direction of the arrows so they point in as opposed to out.
June 20th, 2008 at 5:58 pm
Forget IE or Firefox. Pick an app that is critical for the victim’s job. Try project management, outlining, design, or programming apps instead. Possibly less frequent than IE/Firefox and far more effective because (in theory) they were about to accomplish something.
The autocorrect pranks are fantastic for someone who wouldn’t likely notice the error anyway. I had a boss who was clearly dyslexic but would never admit it so that others could help him proofread memos before they went out. This would have been perfect for him because you could make minor but meaningful changes to words and he wouldn’t have even noticed.
Who knows? It might have been enough to convince him to actually have people proofread for him. (Only to have Outlook autocorrect again!)
June 20th, 2008 at 6:18 pm
@Jake
Normal every day magnets don’t hurt computers in any way, unless you get right up against a floppy disk, and I haven’t seen many people using floppys at all in a long time (except for my work which is still working on the cutting edge of 80’s tech.) The strongest magnets I come across besides Magnatrons are in Hard Drives actually.
June 20th, 2008 at 8:24 pm
A variation on the desktop is to take a screen dump of the desktop and then repeatedly paste it on top of itself in paint so that the final result looks like the icons edges (depending on where the majority of the icons are) are bleeding across the screen.
June 21st, 2008 at 1:21 am
My favorite is to make invisible icons on the desktop using print screen. You can make embarrassing folder names for the person (such as porn of something), copy that into paint, save it, then apply as wallpaper. Once the icon is deleted from the desktop, only the image of it will be there, leaving them clicking and trying to delete nothing. I did this for April Fool’s Day a few years ago and it made my friend crazy.
June 21st, 2008 at 10:43 am
nice, now I finally know how to use the PrtSc (print screen) button, goodbye “screengrab” app…
… Oh and yeah these are some cool pranks, definitely gotta try them on my fellow college students and friends
_ _
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Peace, Yo! From:JJdaCool
June 22nd, 2008 at 4:25 am
21: works better if you unplug their mouse and keyboard
June 22nd, 2008 at 7:36 pm
Andy, if you don’t know where the Start Up folder is you really are not Windows knowledgeable enough to do these pranks. I know even relative tech illiterates who know how to put things in the Start Up folder. It’s right in your Start Menu! I recommend you check it–especially if your start up times seem long. Many programs like to put a shortcut to themselves in there and then they start up whenever Windows starts.
June 22nd, 2008 at 8:46 pm
@Tijl Kindt
Please don’t ever do that (shared printer trick) to a young woman alone at night. In this day being a woman alone at night is already scary enough and it’s just not funny.
June 22nd, 2008 at 8:53 pm
@ Neil
No, man, seriously, it’ funnier if their keyboard works as well. Then, it really looks like the machine is talking to them.
June 23rd, 2008 at 2:33 am
@ Obvious:
If you’re the female, and you are frightened to be in your office alone at night, then please go home. Don’t put yourself through unnecessary anguish, and don’t blame others because you overreacted to an innocent action, or even to a prank not necessarily meant for you.
June 23rd, 2008 at 11:11 am
Nice and interesting read! Learned a whole lot of new pranks to play on my colleagues. Haha…
June 23rd, 2008 at 3:15 pm
Nice, this one is def. getting saved to my favorites here at work. Now just to find an unsuspecting victim….
One of my personal favorites to add:
Print out various clip art images, one to a page. Then put these pages back into the printer/copier/fax tray at random spots. People will not be able to figure out why random pictures are printing “watermarked” on their documents.
I had my boss going for months. I can’t tell you how many times the IT guys were called in, and still no one could figure it out…
June 23rd, 2008 at 9:55 pm
Man, you’re missing the best two.
1. Combination of VNC, Shortcut change and BSoD screensaver: Change the shortcut to start screensaver. Then VNC in, control their mouse on them, and they’ll freak as their computer controls their mouse, clicks on IE and they get Bluescreened.
2.Create a vbs file that shows an error message telling them they have downloaded a virus
June 23rd, 2008 at 10:42 pm
Right peeps, you’re all missing a trick here.
the best pranks use the sounds menu. Download and save a couple of sounds of your choice. I find the sound of a sheep baa-ing, and a woman shrieking quite useful. Then, in control panel, set these sounds to be played whenever the user performs a certain function. Maybe the sheep bleats quietly when a new email arrives; the choice is yours.
For the best effect though, turn the system volume up to max, and set the woman to scream whenever the user exits an application. Hours of fun…
June 24th, 2008 at 7:09 am
DORKS!!! Try these and find that they are the fastest way to become the most tedious person in the office.
June 24th, 2008 at 12:31 pm
One of the pranks I pulled at a previous job was perfect, but unfortunately not really repeatable nowadays. I handled making sure the computers were up and running smoothly (this was back when Windows 3.11 had just come out.
On 1 April that fateful year I replaced the normal Windows Shell program with the OS/2 Shell:
http://toastytech.com/guis/wps.html
I did this after work on the previous evening, when I was there alone, and deliberately came in late the next morning.
Priceless…
June 24th, 2008 at 6:01 pm
@George(72):
Another addition to that is to take the sound you’re going to use (a bleating sheep in your case) and take an audio editing program (there are several free ones on the web) and add a minute or two of silence to the beginning. Now when you map the new sound to an incoming email or whatever, the actual bleating sheep won’t come out audibly for a minute or two. This way the sound doesn’t seem to be associated with any one action making it much harder to figure out how to stop.
June 24th, 2008 at 6:06 pm
The ability of magnets to cause problems with computers is grossly overrated.
Several years ago we had about a thousand 3.5 inch floppies we were trying to randomize before reusing. I took an electronic bulk eraser, and was literally picking disks off the table with it and holding them for 20 or 30 seconds. Did this with dozens of disks, never had a single one that was unreadable afterwards. [Did screw up my watch pretty good though]
Then we took these same disks up to the factory floor toolcrib where they had some industrial permanent magnets, tried the same thing. Still couldn’t erase a signle one of these disks.
June 24th, 2008 at 6:19 pm
Change the location for temporary internet files to the desktop. There’s nothing like the look on your mark’s face when he closes his browser and sees 100+ icons with bizarre names on his desktop.
June 25th, 2008 at 1:56 am
Did anyone here mention the classic MS Word reprogramming? I don’t have the exact code on me. but if you copy and paste certain commands, you can make word close if they press ‘e’, have it type out sh*t if they press ‘e’, good stuff like that.
And if anyone uses their iPod at the computer, there’s a program that lets you save all their stuff to the iPod. Watch them run around trying to figure out where it all went. And if they ever figure it out, just say it was a glitch.
June 25th, 2008 at 7:39 am
cool collection…will try some of them…bookmarked for future references.
June 25th, 2008 at 7:54 pm
Thanks for putting this article together; good job.
This is a great collection and reminds me of an article about pranks you can play in Windows on this website.
June 25th, 2008 at 9:31 pm
@ Will
Brilliant idea to add lengthy silence to the desired offensive sound file, thus masking the trigger. Since anyone is capable of changing sound associations, I suppose I’ll take the time to rename, for example, “baabaapornosheep.wav” to “Windows XP Ding.wav” on the target machine. Hours of fun.
June 26th, 2008 at 1:13 am
To a friend in high school, I had a program replace “p” with “l” when they typed… But when he came over, he brought the teacher and the teacher sat down. It was a programming class, so the teacher starting typing “lrint hi;”. He saw the “typo” and tried to correct it, but “miss-typed”. He tried again and failed while saying, “Did I miss the p again!” He tied again, but by that time I was laughing so hard he caught on and asked he what I’d done.
June 27th, 2008 at 1:46 am
Jeeze those are fantastic… #10 is #1.
thanks for putting those together, got the old wheels turning now, who’s first?
June 27th, 2008 at 1:29 pm
Great Site!
Here’s a prank for the NumBlock, a calculator, the TV remote Control or the Phone: You need to open the chassis and change the numbers order from 9-8-7… to 1-2-3… Works very well with the Phone
Have Fun
June 28th, 2008 at 12:05 am
take your friends phone - swap out your name in their phone with a girl/boy they like -start texting like crazy- hilarious
June 28th, 2008 at 12:18 am
Nice website, enjoyed it.
There’s another browser based prank that opens a pop-up message whenever your colleague visits a new website.
It’s explained here:
http://www.funnyjunk.com/pages/awesome.htm
Have fun.
June 28th, 2008 at 12:50 am
find the main exe for a commonly used program such as word
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\OFFICE11
and rename winword.exe to excel.exe and vice versa
can be done with any common program you colleague uses. double clicks one but the other opens.
June 28th, 2008 at 2:35 am
Also bookmarked for hilariosity!
June 28th, 2008 at 4:45 am
These are all great pranks and I couldn’t wait to try the prankdial.com website, i tried it first on myself to see what would happen, and nothing happened, the site called the number I provided, the caller Id came up all 0’s and there was no message at all, just a hang up. lame. anyway, I can’t wait to try a few other interesting pranks on my unsuspecting vic’s and hope they work. thanks for all the great fun I’m about to have!
June 28th, 2008 at 2:31 pm
How many people tried #40 right after reading it and screwed themselves like I did!?!
June 28th, 2008 at 7:44 pm
Another one for more advanced Mac users. You will need get onto their computer and enable SSH access to their computer. Then when they come back, ssh into their computer and enter the command:
say “whatever you want”
OSX will speak the text on their computer and they will have no idea what is causing it.
June 28th, 2008 at 11:46 pm
@Excellent: I did. But I fixed it quite soon too. Two ways to do that. If you have grouped similar windows in taskbar, then all you do is right click on the group and click Close Group. That does it.
Second method is just to hold down Alt+F4 key and the windows will close as fast as they opened…..
Also as a stat, If you hold down the win and E key for 5 seconds, it would open about 50 windows….almost at rate of 10 windows per second….
Its quick and its fun….
July 1st, 2008 at 2:10 pm
Serius Buisness… you probably meant to say “Serious Business”
July 1st, 2008 at 5:47 pm
@Geoff, that item was about tampering with someone’s dictionary settings to add in misspelled words. Think about it.
July 1st, 2008 at 11:04 pm
I could never be this mean lol but these pranks do sound funny.
July 2nd, 2008 at 4:49 am
there needs to be a 14. telephone fun for uk residents : (
tell me if you get anyhting of the sort, i need it!!!
harrry427@hotmail.co.uk
please please please help me, that kind of thing comes in vey handy over here
July 2nd, 2008 at 5:04 am
NICE!!! Very Nice!!!! I just stumbled it for future more readers.. Jajaja… I like the sense of humor you have… And I am also looking frward for stumble partners… Keep Up Your Good Work
July 2nd, 2008 at 2:40 pm
@Needs help, all of the UK-based services I’ve come across are pay-to-play, unfortunately — but maybe someone else who’s more familiar with UK offerings will have an idea to share. (Anyone?)
July 2nd, 2008 at 2:41 pm
@Chester, thanks — and glad you got some amusement out of it! Hope you see you around again.
July 2nd, 2008 at 5:32 pm
Haha! Wow, this list almost makes me wish that I worked in an office… but hey working from home has its perks too
Great fun, definitely worth the laugh.
July 2nd, 2008 at 9:04 pm
An old favorite of mine was to change all the Windows colors to black. Foreground, background, desktop, titles, borders–black black black black black. If you have the time, also create a black icon and use it for all their desktop shortcuts. That way, when they log in, their screen just goes completely black.
July 2nd, 2008 at 9:13 pm
@Cody, I’m with you on that one — I don’t miss the office at all, but I do miss the ability to screw with people’s heads on the company clock.
July 3rd, 2008 at 9:40 am
Cell phone trick:
scroll to language settings menu of target’s cell phone. Change phone language to russian, chinese or language that does not use western alphabet. Hit Ok. Now target will not be able to use the phone until language is changed back to english. Try to remember the road map to language settings menu (4 items down, select, 3 items down, etc) so you can undo the damage if you decide you want to take it back.
July 3rd, 2008 at 7:50 pm
@Bert #72… I HATE YOU!!!! lol
July 5th, 2008 at 7:02 pm
I think that they should add the USB Humping Dog to this list of gags.
July 5th, 2008 at 10:28 pm
Install Fiddler, a HTTP proxy, on your computer and route your buddies computer to use it. Than run a script that flips all of the images upside-down. Whenever they visit a website, the images will be all messed up.
fiddlertool.com
fiddlertool.com/Fiddler2/extensions.asp (scroll down to “Image-Flipper (sample)”)
July 7th, 2008 at 4:38 pm
But your forgetting one of the best… http://www.tweak3d.net/articles/pranks
July 7th, 2008 at 6:33 pm
Excellent list post. Dugg and stumble from me. I’ll definitely be trying some of these pranks on my buddies in the coming days and weeks.
Justin
http://blogosis.com
July 7th, 2008 at 6:49 pm
A naughty,naughty man and i wonder how you get away with it prankster stay away from my space…LOL
July 7th, 2008 at 9:19 pm
@Garrett, haven’t heard of that one. Will have to check it out.
@Dan, that was #3 on our list.
@Justin, thanks — and good luck!
@Kiema…naughty naughty, indeed. I like your style.
July 8th, 2008 at 6:26 pm
Me like!
Is there already a Guinness world record for the longest period of time someone managed to keep in his workplace after pulling one of these?
July 10th, 2008 at 3:53 pm
For the print screen desktop one (#3) We always just ctrl-alt-del and close explorer.exe which should leave you with just the background image and will fix itself on a reboot.
July 12th, 2008 at 5:23 am
If anything goes wrong on our office computers, our IT person comes running after me with gnashing teeth because I’m even more computer savvy than her — so I must be guilty. I am so sick of defending myself and being accused of doing things that I think are just stupid! I’m hoping my crazy coworkers do not read this webpage and get more ideas. I just want to pick up my paycheck, my entertainment does not occur in the office. Hey, how about a really good prank — one that identifies who planted the malicious code at full speaker volume to the whole office!
July 12th, 2008 at 9:22 pm
Or for hiding icons just press right mouse button then arrange icons by then show/hide desktop items.
July 13th, 2008 at 5:12 pm
At nr 3 prank: after u set the printscreened image as wallpaper u can just kill the explorer.exe process from the windows task manager. Start back the explorer from windows task manager>aplications> new task typing explorer.
July 14th, 2008 at 11:27 am
I seriously hope I am not one of your coworkers…(gulp!). I’m saving these tips so I can “fix” my computer!
July 14th, 2008 at 6:19 pm
As for #3, keep all of the icons exactly where they were, but just remove one. That way everything they click will work except for that one icon. It’s a great trick, especially when you convince someone that Microsoft found something wrong with that program and decided to delete it, but will send an automatic update soon to fix it. Obviously they can’t be computer savvy whatsoever if you want to try that last bit on them.
July 17th, 2008 at 4:42 pm
The hour glass will drive me absolutely crazy no matter what because its running, in the form of an hour glass, and well, spinning.
July 18th, 2008 at 1:33 am
cool!
July 21st, 2008 at 10:37 pm
This list rocks!
Some were new to me!
July 22nd, 2008 at 8:08 pm
how do you undo disapperaring desktop?
July 25th, 2008 at 4:55 am
@M, glad you enjoyed it!
@Dudeman11, it’s a simple fix: Just change the desktop background back to any normal image and drag the icons back onto the desktop (from whatever folder you hid them in).
July 26th, 2008 at 11:25 pm
Not really a prank but more a primitive corporate stealth messaging technique. We used to schedule cigarette breaks, comments about our bosses and lots of humor in the body of ordinary office mail. Just send the email with some typical office opening, “I have been looking at those projections you sent me for the next quarter and…”
When you want to send the stealth message just add it below, “The boss is an jerk and I can’t wait to get falling down drunk at happy hour.”
Select the secret text and just change the font color to white.
The recipient won’t see the message unless it is highlighted.
August 8th, 2008 at 8:08 pm
I was doing some custom programming at a client site when a mild earthquake hit. I convinced the IT manager to send out a gag email telling people how to straighten out the icons on their desktops. Of course, this was more of a joke than a prank.
But one office took that a step further, and hacked into their boss’s computer and moved all his desktop icons around. The IT guy got a most confused call from this user, asking how was it possible that an earthquake could move his icons!! What was funniest was that the guy was more concerned about that it happened while his computer was off than the fact that it happened at all!
August 17th, 2008 at 3:30 am
Laughter adds years to your life….
Using these I ought to live to 100 at least!!!
August 17th, 2008 at 5:04 pm
@ Jojo-
I have to admit though, it’s even better when you know all of the it guys and they are busy implementing the said pranks on others (and each other) completely overlooking anything you do.
Sweet!
Honestly though, this is what keeps my sanity. As long as the work gets done, who cares? Look on the brite side, when I worked in a Dr’s office my favorite was putting KY jelly on a headset, ringing the line and waiting for the scream… Good times….
August 18th, 2008 at 2:17 am
Our technology now is getting higher and higher everyday like what you have said on your post about the The Modern-Day Poltergeist.
August 19th, 2008 at 2:07 am
a good one for mac is plug your mouse into thier computer and mess around…really fun
August 25th, 2008 at 4:05 pm
> We start with one sure to throw off even the most advanced Windows user.
Any advanced windows user will not use IE.
August 27th, 2008 at 4:58 pm
Excellent list, can’t wait to try these on my friends…I especially want to try the phantom keystroke…man they’re gonna be completely lost