10 Computer Shortcuts You Can Use for Evil

10 Computer Shortcuts You Can Use for Evil

NOTE: HACKING LIKE A PRO is not responsible for any damage these shortcuts may cause. Also all of these shortcuts were tested on Windows 7 / Office 2007, though will likely work on most versions of Windows / Office.

1. Turn on High Contrast

What It Does: Turns on High Contrast mode on a computer screen.
Level of Evilness: 1 – It just changes the display, which is easily reversed.
How to Do It: Hit Left Alt + Left Shift + PrintScreen.
How to Fix It: Hit the same keys: (Left Alt + Left Shift + PrintScreen).

2. Lock the scrolling in Excel.

What It Does: Changes the behavior of Excel so that when you hit the arrow keys, it changes the view, not the cell selection.
Level of Evilness: 2 – Experts in Excel will quickly know what’s going on, but novices will likely be confused / gradually aggravated.
How to Do It: In Excel, hit Scroll Lock.
How to Fix It: Hit Scroll Lock again.

3. Turn the display upside down.

What It Does: Changes the orientation of the computer display to left, right or upside down.
Level of Evilness: 3 – It might confuse people, but is easy to fix and does no permanent damage.
How to Do It: Hit Ctrl+Alt+DownArrowKey (or Left, Right or Up).
How to Fix It: Ctrl+Alt+UpArrowKey.

4. Turn on Computer Beeps.

What It Does: Turns on “ToggleKeys” which makes the computer beep every time you push a lock key (such as Caps Lock).
Level of Evilness: 4 – It doesn’t do any damage and may take awhile to pay off, but it can certainly be annoying when you don’t know why your computer is beeping.
How to Do It: Hold down the NUM LOCK key for five seconds, then hit Yes.
How to Fix It: How down NUM LOCK for five seconds again.

5. Insert Random Text in Word.

What It Does: Inserts random text into Microsoft Word.
Level of Evilness: 5 – It’s pretty easy to remove to random text from a document, but if you put it in the middle of a 30 page proposal, it may take a while to get noticed.
How to Do It: Enter the following into Word: “=rand(x,y)” where x = the number of paragraphs and y = the number of sentences you want.
How to Fix It: Highlight the random text and hit Delete.

6. Make the keyboard seem broken.

What It Does: Turns on FilterKeys which ignores brief or repeated key strokes.
Level of Evilness: 6 – It’s easy to fix but may take some people a long time to even realize FilterKeys is enabled; in the meantime they’ll think their computer is broken or they don’t know how to type.
How to Do It: Hold the right Shift key for 8 seconds, then hit Yes.
How to Fix It: Hold the right Shift key for 8 seconds.

7. Create a Dummy Desktop.

What It Does: Replaces the desktop background with an image of the old desktop background. If you remove the folder icons, it then seem like the computer is not responding / desktop shortcuts won’t open.
Level of Evilness: 7 – Easy to restore unless you delete all of the shortcuts and empty the recycling bin. Incredibly frustrating while you try to figure it out.
How to Do It: Go to the desktop, hit Ctrl+Prnt Screen. Open Microsoft Paint, hit Ctrl+V to copy the screen capture of the image, save the image. Right click on the image, select “Set as Desktop Background.” WindowsKey + D to go the Desktop, Ctrl+A to select all shortcuts, Delete to delete.
How to Fix It: Restore the shortcuts from the Recycling Bin, reset the Desktop background.

8. Change the capitalization in a word document.

What It Does: Changes the case of the selected words (CAPS, no caps, Proper).
Level of Evilness: 8 – It’s pretty easy to fix (with Ctrl+Z) but could be really annoying for large documents if you save/close the document, especially for anything with a lot of acronyms.
How to Do It: In Microsoft Word, highlight a selection (or the entire document by hitting Ctrl+A), then hit Shift+F3 to cycle through: all caps, no caps, proper case.
How to Fix It: Ctrl+Z is the easiest. If you save the document and then exit, Ctrl+Z won’t help. The next best step is to highlight the section and Shift+F3 to proper case (though you will lose in-line capitalization on proper nouns and acronyms).

9. Rename all the files in a folder.

What It Does: Renames all of the files in a folder to the same name (adding a number at the end to prevent duplicates).
Level of Evilness: 9 – Unless you immediately do Ctrl+Z, there’s no easy way to get the original names back.
How to Do It: Go to a folder with files in it. Hit Ctrl+A to Select All, Hit F2 to Rename the first file, Enter the name you want to give to all files, Hit Enter.
How to Fix It: Ctrl+Z can be used until another folder action takes place (such as deleting a file).

10. Cause a Blue Screen of Death on Command.

What It Does: Triggers a BSOD (Blue Screen of Death) any time a specific shortcut is entered.
Level of Evilness: 10 – This takes a bit of pre-work on the computer, but you could conceivably cause a BSOD on a friend’s computer in seconds after it’s been setup.
How to Do It: Enable debugging mode (follow this guide), restart the computer, then hit Ctrl+Scroll Lock (twice) to cause the BSOD.
How to Fix It: Disable debugging mode.

Have any computer shortcuts you use for pranking your co-workers? Share them in the comments? Want to prevent your computer for getting messed with, remember the most important shortcut of all: WindowsKey + L to lock your computer.