How to annoy your coworkers with some computing tricks

I will put here a list of jokes that we can do to our coworkers, friends or family.

Rotate the screen

Most often, you can use the Ctrl + Alt + Arrow Direction to do it, but you can also use the graphic menu.

What you need

• Potentially Multi OS, procedure for Windows 10

• User session access

Procedure

• From the Desktop do a Right click, and select Display settings.

• From the Display menu change Orientation setting.

• Portrait (flipped) for example.

• Then select Keep changes.

Locked Desktop

Here we will take a full picture of the Desktop target, then use it as background picture. This way user won't be able to open its shortcuts.

What you need

• Potentially Multi OS, procedure for Windows 10

• User session access

Procedure

• We can use the print screen button or the Microsoft SnippingTool.

• We select Full-screen Snip mode.

• Save the result anywhere you want (but Desktop off course).

• Move the Desktop shortcut icons to a backup folder in order to have an empty Desktop.

• Now we have to hide Windows taskbar. To do so, do a right click on the taskbar and select taskbar settings.

• From the Taskbar menu enable the Automatically hide the taskbar in desktop mode option and set its location to the top.

• Finally, change the Desktop Background image with the Print Screen we've took just before.

• Visually, the user will have the same desktop view but he won't be able to interact with it.

Slow mouse

We will slow down the mouse cursor speed.

What you need

• Potentially Multi OS, procedure for Windows 10

• User session access

Procedure

• Open the Mouse Properties Window.

• Go to Pointer Options tab and set the pointer speed cursor to slow.

Change display language

What better way to annoy a user than to change the display language?

What you need

• Potentially Multi OS, procedure for Windows 10

• User session access

Procedure

• Open Settings Menu. (or use ms-settings:display.

• Click to Time & Language.

• Click to Language menu.

• Click to Add a preferred language.

• Choose an nice language for your friend and click Next to install.

• Click Install.

• Change the Windows display language.

• Close and re-open session.

• Good luck with that.

Change keyboard layout

We can change the keyboard layout from English QWERTY to French AZERTY for example.

What you need

• Potentially Multi OS, procedure for Windows 10

• User session access

Procedure

• Open Windows display language.

• As for display language add a preferred language.

• Move new language up to the top.

Permute screens

Easy, you just have to swap the video connectors of your target.

What you need

• Multi OS

• Physical access

• Multi Screen configuration

Crazy Network

Here the computer won't be able to access netwok and the cable won't be reported as disconnected.

What you need

• Multi OS

• Physical access

• Small network switch

Procedure

Power on the switch and plug the targeted ethernet cable only.

Crazy Mouse

To make an optical mouse hard to work with you can put a piece (clear one) of scotch tape over the bottom of the mouse.

What you need

• Multi OS

• Physical access

• Optical Mouse

• A piece of clear scotch tape

Procedure

Just put the scotch tape over the bottom of the mouse.

Alternative

Plug the mouse to another computer, the light will be on but the muse won't repond.

Fake DNS

You can prevent computers to access to specific websites by editing the hosts file.

What you need

• Multi OS

• Admin access

Procedure

Windows

• Edit the C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts file

0.0.0.0 www.google.com
0.0.0.0 google.com

Unix

• Edit the /etc/hosts file

0.0.0.0 www.google.com
0.0.0.0 google.com

Auto Start

You can automatically start a program at user logon.

What you need

• Windows OS

• User or Admin session access

Procedure

Add startup programs here C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\StartUp or here C:\Users\USER_PROFILE\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup.

• Open current Users Startup folder.

• Open All Users Startup folder.