Some Cool Computer Pranks

 Everyone loves cool computer pranks unless you are on the receiving end of the fun. To hone your pranking skills, make sure you know the coolest. computer pranks, so you can avoid being pranked by others.

You could go with the old standard Computer Pranks, like a blue screen of death screensaver or anything like that, but now you can use your geek skills with something better. You can cover some of the old and cool computer pranks, but with a twist. Many of these cool computer pranks required to be able to access somebody’s computer physically, and many others require to leave their PC logged in and unattended. You have to plan for these cool computer pranks accordingly.

Some cool computer pranks

Make the Space Key Write the Word SPACE

HotKey

Pretend to Install Linux on a Windows User’s PC

Create a Shutdown Shortcut that Looks like a Folder

Add Common Typos or Funny Words in MS Word’s Dictionary or AutoComplete

Setup Task Scheduler Jobs to Launch Random Apps (or a Web Page)

Busy Mouse Pointer

High Contrast Prank

Shift + Alt + Print screen

The Old-School Favorite: Desktop icons prank

Make the Space Key Write the Word SPACE

It is clever and among the cool computer pranks. Make the victim’s computer type the word ‘SPACE’ every time they press the space bar. Surely they’ll be lost in trying to figure out what is going on, and it couldn’t be simple.

Hotkey script 

Just create a new Auto Hotkey script and drop in these two lines of code—the first one to hide the tray icon, and the second to set up the hotkey for replacing the text.

            #No Tray Icon

            *Space::Send, SPACE

Probably you want to right-click on the script to compile it to an executable before putting that on their computer. Just stick that somewhere on their PC, launch it, and watch the fun.

Pretend to Install Linux on a Windows User’s PC

This prank can’t be simpler—just find out someone at work who switches off their PC at night, reach in before them, and boot off a Linux Live CD. Leave an official-looking memo on their desk saying they’ve been upgraded to Linux then watch them struggle to find out what they are doing. Probably they want to get rid of the Install icon. This is indeed among the cool computer pranks.

Create a Shutdown Shortcut that Looks like a Folder

This Shutdown Shortcut computer prank is really simple to do—create a Shutdown Shortcut to shutdown.exe on the desktop, and change the Shutdown Shortcut icon to a regular folder, so whenever they double-click the folder to see the contents, they get a nice system shutdown notice instead. You can also change the Shutdown Shortcut time far in the future so they won’t lose their work, rather they may get the full benefit of your nerd skills. This Shutdown Shortcut is also among the cool computer pranks.

If that person is using XP, the effect of the Shutdown Shortcut will be nice and dramatic, and you can even have some fun with the shutdown time also. On Windows 7 you can’t be able to show off your geek skills of creating Shutdown Shortcut well, but they can notice something that will confuse them.

Add Common Typos or Funny Words in MS Word’s Dictionary or AutoComplete

There are limitless possibilities of adding Funny Words in MS Word as cool computer pranks. Put something custom into AutoCorrect and some Funny Words in MS Word so whatever they type gets replaced with something else.

You can replace a properly typed word with a typo, or you can get in their face with some more Funny Words in MS Word-like making any time they type their name, may end up replacing that with “<Name> is a jerk”.

For adding Funny Words in MS Word 2007 or for adding Funny Words in MS Word 2010, head to the Office button –> Options –> Proofing –> AutoCorrect Options. But for previous versions, there is no idea. If you like this to be system-wide, you can use Auto Hotkey instead.

Setup Task Scheduler Jobs to Launch Random Apps (or a Web Page)

It can be difficult for even a serious geek to troubleshoot a new tab, opening to a certain page repeatedly every now & then, bury it inside the task scheduler. To make these cool computer pranks work. Simply go in, create a new task, run through the wizard to pick the browser executable, plug the site name into the arguments box, and then set the schedule to repeat the task every five minutes.

Busy Mouse Pointer

The busy mouse pointer is a very simple computer prank, but with lots of fun. Just head into Control Panel –> Mouse –> Pointers and change the Normal pointer to a busy mouse pointer. They’ll assume from this busy mouse pointer that their computer is hanging all the time, but in fact, it’s not. For some extra fun, make the mouse pointers gigantic along with the busy mouse pointer.

High Contrast Prank

This high-contrast prank works on a built-in accessibility option in computers, and this high-contrast prank can be very confusing to the person who doesn’t know how to turn it off. This high contrast prank requires pressing of only one shortcut key sequence:

Shift + Alt + Print screen

When you press this key combo, their desktop will be flipped to high contrast mode, you can press it again to get back to normal. Even if their computer is locked, you can enable high contrast prank with the icon on the lower-left corner. For high contrast prank on Mac OS X, you can press Ctrl+Opt+Cmd+8 to invert the colors of the screen.

The Old-School Favorite: Desktop icons prank

Most geeks do desktop icons prank at some point in their career, it’s quite simple but irritating, mainly for those who aren’t expecting it. The basic principle of desktop icons prank works in many ways:

• Take a screenshot of the desktop with the icons wherever they are, set that as wallpaper, then hide the desktop icons.
•  Move desktop icons around or create fake icons, take screenshots then set them as the wallpaper. Now some icons work, and some won’t.
• Take the screenshot of the desktop, hide the taskbar below the bottom of the screen before setting the wallpaper (this only works on XP). For better: flip the image upside down.

The result of this desktop icons prank is that they’ll keep clicking, but nothing will happen.

Conclusion

Combine this desktop icons prank with the shutdown shortcut so that when they figure it out and try to open the folder, it’ll give them the shutdown prank too!