Pranking the office: fake Blue Screen of Death
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We have a large database front end that is used throughout our office, written in-house (and maintained by me.) It is published using ClickOnce, so users are used to launching the app and getting asked to install a new build. Today's version had a slight addition. Under a top-level menu item called Accounts, I added a menu item at the bottom labeled Test. This launches a maximized, borderless form with no title bar that turns off the cursor and intercepts all keystrokes. It is black for three seconds, then turns death-screen blue with a message that there was a fatal memory error. The message also says that the machine will reboot automatically in 15... 14... 13... 12.... When the timer reaches 0, a message box pops up that says "If something says Test, and you're not a tester, DON'T CLICK IT!" Clicking the Ok button closes the form, returning the machine state to normal. I've already caught two people this morning. :-D
I did something similar two years ago. There was somewhere in codeproject I think a link to a screen-saver like blue screen of death that responded only to the Esc button. The user tried other buttons of the keyboard and then hit the reset button, losing work he had in progress :P :~ Maybe this was too much trauma for him: he hasn't really done any work here since then.
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If it were any day other than April 1, I might actually try it.
Actually, it does what he says it does.
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Reminds me of the time I took a screenshot of a person's screen, set that as the background, then moved all the icons into a single folder on the desktop. Took that person and the programming teacher in the class like half an hour to figure it out. :-\
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You can also have a bit of fun using following javascript:
javascript:document.body.contentEditable='false'; document.designMode='on'; void 0
Open the webpage, paste it in the address bar and edit any text you want to. Edit: Corrected typo.
modified on Thursday, April 1, 2010 10:31 AM
I think you need to change it from:
javascript:document.body.contentEditable='false'; document.designMode='on'; void 0To:javascript:document.body.contentEditable='true'; document.designMode='on'; void 0:-OI know you believe you understood what you think I said, but I am not sure you realize what you heard is not what I meant.
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We have a large database front end that is used throughout our office, written in-house (and maintained by me.) It is published using ClickOnce, so users are used to launching the app and getting asked to install a new build. Today's version had a slight addition. Under a top-level menu item called Accounts, I added a menu item at the bottom labeled Test. This launches a maximized, borderless form with no title bar that turns off the cursor and intercepts all keystrokes. It is black for three seconds, then turns death-screen blue with a message that there was a fatal memory error. The message also says that the machine will reboot automatically in 15... 14... 13... 12.... When the timer reaches 0, a message box pops up that says "If something says Test, and you're not a tester, DON'T CLICK IT!" Clicking the Ok button closes the form, returning the machine state to normal. I've already caught two people this morning. :-D
I once subclassed the system button to move away from the mouse. This means that ANY button on the system would slide away from the mouse like a bar of wet soap. It was funny to watch. This was under Windows 3.1, where such mischief was reasonably easy to do. Earlier tricks that were done on an old VT100 text-based screen (circa mid 1980's): 1. Download a backward character set to the terminal. 2. Intercept keystrokes and introduce random keystroke errors. I am happy to report that I have grown up since then.
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That is the best computer prank ... :thumbsup: .. EVER.
I'd blame it on the Brain farts.. But let's be honest, it really is more like a Methane factory between my ears some days then it is anything else...
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We have a large database front end that is used throughout our office, written in-house (and maintained by me.) It is published using ClickOnce, so users are used to launching the app and getting asked to install a new build. Today's version had a slight addition. Under a top-level menu item called Accounts, I added a menu item at the bottom labeled Test. This launches a maximized, borderless form with no title bar that turns off the cursor and intercepts all keystrokes. It is black for three seconds, then turns death-screen blue with a message that there was a fatal memory error. The message also says that the machine will reboot automatically in 15... 14... 13... 12.... When the timer reaches 0, a message box pops up that says "If something says Test, and you're not a tester, DON'T CLICK IT!" Clicking the Ok button closes the form, returning the machine state to normal. I've already caught two people this morning. :-D
How did you bypass Gina driver that intercepts Ctrl+Alt+Del before anything else?
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How did you bypass Gina driver that intercepts Ctrl+Alt+Del before anything else?
I relied on the fact that my users are USERS. The ones that got caught never thought to do anything other than watch helplessly.
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I relied on the fact that my users are USERS. The ones that got caught never thought to do anything other than watch helplessly.
Yeah, users are users lol. There is also an easy way to disable task manager button from the Ctrl+Alt+Del screen in case they try it.
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Yeah, users are users lol. There is also an easy way to disable task manager button from the Ctrl+Alt+Del screen in case they try it.
If I had disabled Alt+Ctrl+Del, it would have prevented them from rebotting the computer. If anyone had reset their computer, the joke would have been much funnier (at least to me.)
