Steve’s Tech Guide

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Today, at Steve’s Tech Guide we took the time to compile a list of the best computer pranks available so you can be on top of things for April Fools’ Day. They are simple, elegant, easy to do, and easy to undo. These pranks are probably only going to fool some of the less tech-savvy people you know, so be careful. Try these on your mom, grandma, grandpa, co-workers, or friends, but don’t try them on the IT guy in your department, because I’m sure he can come up with something at least as equally bad for you.

The Best Computer Pranks For Getting A Good Laugh

1. Remote Desktop Login
Enable remote desktop remotely from your personal computer on the victims computer. Learn how to setup remote desktop if you don’t know how. Then whenever they are logged in remotely connect to their computer and it will log them out. When they log back in you will be logged out. You can fight with them for the login, or you can change things around while you’re remotely connected to their computer, like their wallpaper, desktop icons, open up programs, go to a certain web page, or anything, and they’ll be wondering what’s going on, and if they are paranoid they’ll think a hacker has taken over their computer as well.

Instead of using remote desktop you can also use TightVNC to control your victim’s computer from anywhere as well.

2. Blue Screensaver of Death
Everyone is familiar with the infamous BSOD so why not give it to their computer? Complete with their system specifications pulled directly from their computer’s hard drive? BlueScreen will simulate genuine BSODs and gather information from your system configuration to full even the most knowledgable computer people. It will refresh the screen every 15 seconds. A must have prank for April Fools’ Day.

3. Office Poltergeist
Install Office Poltergeist and have the best April Fools’ Day ever. Office Poltergeist is a free prank program that you can use to wreak havoc on your friends and enemies. It allows you to play sounds, open/close CD drives, transmit text through your victim’s keyboard, shake windows, turn monitors off and on, slightly move windows, and send pop up alert messages.

They also have an Office Poltergeist Firefox extension that allows you to play sounds, load new web pages, replace words on webpages with other words, send popup alert messages all within your victim’s Firefox web browser.

4. Wallpaper Prank
This one is an old prank that has been around for awhile. Use the ‘Print Scrn’ button to take a picture of the victim’s desktop. Then go into MS Paint or Adobe Photoshop, paste the image into the photo-editing software, and edit out the task bar. After that save it, then apply it as the wallpaper. Get rid of the desktop icons by putting them in another folder. This is really good for people that don’t know a darn thing about computers. You can also replace the wallpaper with open internet windows, or a porn web site to get the desired effect needed.

5. Internet/Email/Flash Pranks
Liquid Generation has a good site full of flash pranks that you can use to email people certain messages, like they owe the government thousands of dollar for downloading illegal music, or my favorite one where you email your friend a perverted news story about another friend doing some illicit sexual acts.

You can also show someone a story The Onion. They might be foolish enough to believe it. If you don’t know what The Onion is, it’s basically the National Enquirer of the internet, except I think The Onion has better tastes and is more funny.

6. Create A Shutdown Button
This prank involves creating a shortcut icon on the desktop, naming it something like Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox. Then having that button shutdown Windows with an ETA, as well as a message that pops up. For the specifics follow the video for the first 3 minutes or so.

7. Computer Prank Software
Over at Computer Pranks they have a giant list of computer prank software that do any variety of things from opening the start menu, acting like your system folders have all been deleted. If there’s any computer prank that you’ve ever thought of I’m sure they’d have something similar to it.

This completes our list of the best computer pranks for getting a good laugh. These pranks were hand picked to ensure that you got the most out of your time for reading this list.

Good luck pranking, and have a fun and happy April Fools’ Day.