Disappearing Desktop
Prankster replaces the mark’s desktop image with a screencap of said desktop, while removing all desktop icons. After repeatedly clicking on the screencap icons to no avail, the mark is convinced his computer is hosed.
Mouse Mayhem
Prankster surreptitiously plugs a wireless mouse receiver into the back of the mark’s machine. The mark wonders why the heck her pointer keeps moving with a life of its own.
Bluescreen BS
Thank Microsoft for this one. Prankster downloads a special bluescreen of death screensaver. Mark believes his computer bit it. http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897558.aspx
Keyboard Khaos
By going Regional and Language Options within Windows and choosing to remap a keyboard layout, a wily prankster can easily make it very hard for the mark to type up his office memos.
Outlook Rules Rage
Endless pranks are born out of the prankster’s monkeying with Outlook rules to automatically send messages to special folders, play weird noises, forward inappropriate messages and so on.
Waiting Worries
When pranksters know how to change the mouse settings to permanently replace a pointer with an hourglass, many a mark will believe their system is stuck ‘thinking’ about an imaginary process.
Spooky Speakers
Why is the mark’s speaker randomly playing high-pitched screeches, ghost noises and inappropriate moans? Because the prankster plugged them into her computer, of course.
AutoCorrect Confusion
Similarly, the prankster’s playing with Word’s AutoCorrect feature to replace, say the word ‘the’ with ‘boss is an idiot’ will convince less experienced marks that their word processor is busted.