How to mess up a PC running Windows 7?

Question

Ok, so for my PC class I have to find 3 hacks that would mess up the lab's PC. Me and my partner are going to mess up the PC and then another team will try to fix it. The system on it is Windows 7. Anything that would stop the normal use or render the PC useless works. The conditions:

Can't open the case
Can't use the registry settings (due to how big it is, it would take the other team a long time to fix)
Needs to be fixable (meaning, nothing that would mess that bad so it would require an reinstall) within 15-30 minutes (by my teacher, preferably not by the other team :)
Can use the administrative tools
No downloads (PC is not even connected to a network)

Note: stuff like create a fake, unclickable desktop by taking the desktop's screenshot and setting it as a background won't work as this has been discussed already. Also creating a reboot link and putting it in the autostart programs has been discussed. But anything of this type would be great to hear.

Any suggestions?

P.S. This is really for my college class, so no harm here, just pure lab fun :)

Added after edit: First would like to thank everybody for the input, some great ideas here. To clarify some things: - I have the admin account - It needs to be done in about 15 minutes, it needs to be able to be fixed in 15-30 minutes - Can't connect it to ANY network, since it's a lab PC and the college wouldn't allow them.

@Billare, yes, our teacher is a hacker at heart :)

Oh, and by the way, I don't think we are allowed to boot from another media, or mess with the BIOS, it is a Desktop Systems Administration class, and everything needs to be done inside Windows. I'll ask and see if we're allowed, if yes, then I can use some ideas from here. Thank again to everybody.

Edit 2: Let's try a different angle. How about disabling some non-vital services which will cause some annoyance. The main point, it needs to be a pain right from the start of using the PC, not in the long term use. Wow, my head is spinning some ideas from here, great, will let you know tonight what I used.

Moderator note: If you suggest ways to disable/break the computer, please include information on how to fix whatever it is you're breaking as well, if it is not immediately obvious.

One-liner answers, that fail to explain how they work or what the do, will be converted to comments.

Do you already have access to an admin account, or do you need to compromise the system first? — rob, Apr 27 '11 at 06:54
I'm surprised that an "official" institution like a university would allow something like this... — Uticensis, Apr 27 '11 at 11:50
@Billare - it sounds like a good lesson to me, the machine is isolated from the network so potential damage is limited and odds are the machine will be overwritten with disc image after so any os damage will be repaired almost instantly. — Robb, Apr 27 '11 at 12:11
I would suggest to run a script that applies a bunch of these problems, another script to disable them. :) — Tamara Wijsman, Apr 27 '11 at 12:48
Wow. I'm actually having a hard time putting an up-vote on this one, since it's more about causing problems than solving any. Ah, the heck with it. Great ideas, everyone! — Iszi, Apr 27 '11 at 12:54
@james - norton antivirus was worse, the last time i had to deal with a computer with it ;p — Journeyman Geek, Apr 27 '11 at 14:34
FYI: Users who fail to answer with more than a one-liner will have their answers converted to comments. — Ivo Flipse, Apr 27 '11 at 15:51
If it already has Windows 7 on it, it sounds like it's pretty thoroughly messed up already. Your work here is done. — Adrian Petrescu, Apr 27 '11 at 18:01
I'd be interested in responses that could show what using powershell could accomplish for this. — 9b5b, Apr 27 '11 at 18:10
@Journeyman Geek norton is worse than ANY anti-virus software i have EVER seen. — Nate Koppenhaver, Apr 27 '11 at 18:25
@jon - tie something like this http://powershell.com/cs/blogs/tips/archive/2009/04/24/ejecting-cds.aspx into the scheduled tasks to run every minute, or sit the script in auto run wrapped in an infinite loop with random pauses for less predictability — Robb, Apr 27 '11 at 19:09
@Adrian Petrescu - You obviously haven't used windows 7, or confusing it with vista. Windows 7 is actually pretty nice and stable — Journeyman Geek, Apr 27 '11 at 22:03
There was a decent discussion recently in a very similar vein on the Ars Technica forums. Thread Link. Some sadistic ideas within involving crippling the heaps, boot.ini fun, Driver Verifier, eating memory with extremely large background images, very long system sounds, etc. — afrazier, Apr 28 '11 at 13:19
@James - I'm loving the fact that despite multitude of evil things you can do to a pc listed below installing McAfee is still in first place on the voting! People can't intentionally break windows as hard as McAfee manages unintentionally! — Robb, Apr 28 '11 at 21:47
You can also autorun a shutdown command. take a look at msconfig to find go — Fabian Schuh, Apr 27 '11 at 07:58
This is a easy one to do, rename windows and temp directories and when doing so just add spaces at the beginning also making them read only could be fun. — N4TKD, Apr 27 '11 at 19:45
Go into Mouse settings and change all the cursors to a transparent .cur file. — Ry-, Apr 28 '11 at 22:39
Hold down Window-e. This opens copies of Windows Explorer at the keyboard's repeat rate. Windows Vista and later use a lot of video resources per open window (thanks to Aero) so that tends to fill up the RAM and bog down the PC after a few seconds. — John Walthour, Apr 27 '11 at 14:30
Can't. After I'm done with the PC I have to shut it off and give place to the other team to suffer. — pHelics, Apr 27 '11 at 15:22
It doesn't work in Windows 7, I get only one window, though iirc it worked in Vista. — Alexia Luna, Apr 27 '11 at 17:33
+1: i tried it for just a one second on my comp (its an XP SP3), waited for the hourglass to go away, and i got a nasty alert box saying i was out of memory (i have 2GB of RAM) — Nate Koppenhaver, Apr 27 '11 at 20:42
I'm not sure how much of win.ini and 'system.ini' is used in Windows7 (showing on my 64-bit version), but might be able to have some fun adding stuff there. Back in the Windows 3.x time, it was good fun. :) — Macke, Apr 28 '11 at 11:05
Bookmarking this thread for the next time someone in the office goes on vacation. — Alain, Apr 29 '11 at 13:37
A simple but mean one, swap the name of the users logon profile, so when they try to logon to the one called 'Admin' or its equivalent, it will be a different profile and a different password. Simple fix is to log on to the renamed one that is actually the admin profile and change it back — , Mar 20 '13 at 16:07
A personal favourite is creating a scheduled task which executes a windows log off (or shutdown) every minute. You've got to be fast to get there and disable it in time. This can be done remotely if you had the luxury of a network and local admin (not that I'd ever do this to a colleague) — Basic, Aug 29 '14 at 17:10
"Install McAfee", dying laughing here, I might have to go to the doctor to get it to stop. — Moab, Sep 22 '15 at 22:34

score 267 · Accepted Answer · edited Apr 29 '11 at 08:04

267

A few major problems for you,

In bios disable the processors L2 cache - Machine crawls
Windows+break-->advanced system settings --> hardware tab --> Device Manager, right click disable mouse (make sure you can get here with just your keyboard so you can undo this!)
ctrl+alt + Arrow key - on some graphics cards this rotates the screen. (usually with no method of undoing this unless you know this shortcut)
Make a floppy boot disc/usb Key/CD Rom, pop it in the floppy drive and ensure its set to first in the boot order in bios (bonus points for removing the hdd from boot list and creating all 3 boot discs with a different os on each so they fix one then get the next!)
Use a partitioning tool to shrink the hdd partition to a few mb more than is currently in use
Do the opposite and fill up available space with multiple copies of large files. Combined with a startup script to start the copies would keep the hard drive filled if they first attempted cleanup by deleting files.

And a few irritations to garnish the pc with

If it had internet access - Open Internet Properties --> connections Tab -->Lan Settings, Check use a proxy server, set the address to 127.0.0.1 (prevents them googling for solutions :P)
Right click on desktop - View - uncheck show desktop icons (irritating but not tough to fix)
sticky tape on the bottom of the mouse can disrupt the laser stopping the mouse working (couple this with the major disabling of the mouse in device manager to add confusion).
if the connectors are ps2, swap the mouse and keyboard, obvious if you're used to hardware but passes a quick glance from a noob
In word Office button -->Word Options --> proofing --> AutoCorrect Options --> add a few entries for common words, subtlety is your friend, is --> was the --> teh etc (2k7 instructions but can be done via different route in most versions)

Reverse the steps to undo the problems and ask in comments if you have trouble!

Edit - as we may have had our beastly BIOS tricks taken from us here's a couple more windows based ones

Put the shutdown command into autoexec.bat Command syntax here (you've talked about putting similar functionality in the startup folder, so this should confuse em by doing the same thing from a different spot)

Fork bomb! Create a .bat file containing the following text and make it autorun (either call from autoexec.bat or drop the .bat in startup folder)

:s
start %0
goto s

This will spawn huge numbers of processes untill the machine grinds to a halt (The code is untested but looks viable)

edited Apr 29 '11 at 08:04

ymajoros

437

answered Apr 27 '11 at 10:34

Robb

631

8

as far as i know, the ctrl alt arrow key combo definately works on intel based systems – Journeyman Geek Apr 27 '11 at 12:42
@Journeyman Geek - That tallies with my experience, I think some ATI cards do it too. I'm not sure if its universal across their product ranges however. – Robb Apr 27 '11 at 12:44
9

The double mouse disruption trick is a nice idea... :) – Tamara Wijsman Apr 27 '11 at 12:46
2

@Journey @Robb It works on any system with an Intel graphics chip and where the igfxhkcmd process is running -- and really only the latter is required, but it comes with the driver for the Intel graphics chips. – Joel Coehoorn Apr 27 '11 at 13:20
91

Upvoted for this code is untested but looks viable. Also, fork bombs. <3 – eckza Apr 27 '11 at 13:31
2

@Robb: Along the lines of hiding desktop icons - my roommate and I once did this to a third roommate's laptop when he left it unlocked. To sweeten the deal, though, we first took a screenshot of his desktop with the icons visible, then set it as the desktop background (and hid the real icons). So when our "victim" came back it appeared he had icons but he was really just clicking on his desktop background. It made his troubleshooting take a bit longer (and was more fun to watch). – eldarerathis Apr 27 '11 at 14:02
@robb: thanks for the alt-ctrl-arrow thing. Ofcourse I needed to try it and couldn't reverse immediately. Apparently, dual monitors rotate seperatly. Good thing I had some monitor schemes installed ;) – Yoh Apr 27 '11 at 14:45
1

+1 Just for the Fork bomb. Still works great under Windows 7 even. PLUS no UAC prompt. ;) – Ƭᴇcʜιᴇ007 Apr 27 '11 at 18:42
+1 for "Put the shutdown command into autoexec.bat", that made me lol – BlueRaja - Danny Pflughoeft Apr 27 '11 at 19:34
8

autoexec.bat does nothing anymore... – Hello71 Apr 27 '11 at 20:18
2

create a bat file in the startup folder that references the fake blue screen program from microsoft: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897558.aspx – m4tt1mus Apr 27 '11 at 21:10
11

I've been saving a fork bomb somewhere, create a shortcut to it on the desktop and (for example) change the shortcut file name to "Firefox" as well as the icon to the real one. Bonus if you do this to Programs Menu as well. >:] You could do this to as much stuff as you want. If you wanna be particularly evil, go to Program Files and mark it as system folder as well as hidden. Next proceed to creating a shortcut in its place. Hehehe. – Christian Apr 28 '11 at 22:23
You are evil! :D – Pitto Apr 29 '11 at 13:04
2

I'd use vistalizator to uninstall english and put vietnamese as basic language too – Pitto Apr 29 '11 at 13:05
i'm not sure of that, but isn't the process "hkcmd.exe" commonly found on windows installations responsible of the Ctrl+alt+ArrowKey shortcut? if so, then killing/disabling this process after the rotation will avoid getting recovered with simply the keys combination. – BiAiB Apr 29 '11 at 13:14
That's funny and nasty. lol. – crosenblum Nov 06 '11 at 00:15

score 200 · Answer 2 · answered Apr 29 '11 at 12:25

200

Create a mouse cursor theme where the arrow tip is NOT at mouse position.

This should be puzzling enough.

answered Apr 29 '11 at 12:25

Benoit

7,033

47

this is proper evil.... – Matt Feb 08 '12 at 17:10
4
disable the mouse x2

n611x007

Jun 22 '12 at 20:25

4

and add tape behind laser block... – tigrou Jun 28 '12 at 20:50

23

This made me laugh so hard, it took 3 attempts to hit the upvote button :D – Martin Seeler Oct 09 '13 at 19:57

1

Also make it an animated cursor that changes shape. – rob Aug 26 '16 at 15:45

score 104 · Answer 3 · answered Apr 27 '11 at 14:09

104

Change the keyboard layout to "Dvorak" or some other obscure non-English setting. They'll probably figure it out fairly quickly but it will still be really obnoxious to fix. In advance, you can write down the key combinations needed to switch back.

answered Apr 27 '11 at 14:09

CarlF

8,844

14

French keyboard is pretty mean. It gets better if you can swap ctrl and alt keys. Combine with disabling the mouse for extra fun. – Jonas Apr 27 '11 at 15:45
110

+1 if you do this and disable the mouse ;) – James Apr 27 '11 at 16:06
4

+1 for really obnoxious to fix – Robb Apr 27 '11 at 17:57
13

Along the same lines, perhaps use an autohotkey script to wreak havoc. They're hard to detect, especially if you compile it as a .exe and rename it something like svchost.exe. I have one around here somewhere that alphabetizes the keyboard (e.g., q -> a, w -> b...) – Reid Apr 28 '11 at 03:26
10

To complement Reid's comment, and autohotkey scripts which changes the keyboard layout every minute. Combined with a 'safe' combination that doesn't change to disable it. – André Paramés Apr 28 '11 at 11:12
2

works even better if you know dvorak. ;) – John May 17 '11 at 00:32

Tamara Wijsman · Answer 4 · 2011-07-10T22:38:12.617

Adjust the Date/Time format to include a funny string, often done by viruses.

Fix: Hard to find if you are unaware of these settings, remove the string there.
Move the .cpl items of C:\Windows\System32 elsewhere, thus disabling any control panels.

Fix: Search for those files, probably look by last access/modified date.

How to make this harder: Put them in a zip file, makes it harder to find them as it is a single entry.

Alternative fix: Run sfc /scannow, which should put those files back.
Give them a black screen after logon by removing everyone from the permissions list, don't recursively apply this though but just change it that everyone doesn't apply to this folder anymore but still all files and subdirectories.

Fix: Hard to know the cause, but you can simply give everyone the permission back in Safe Mode.

Why does this happen: Because Windows often pokes your %SystemRoot% (most likely C:) and if it doesn't have permissions for that it will most likely not look further and stop instead...

@JourneymanGeek: If you're running Windows XP, yes. But Windows 7 doesn't need a CD due to the WinSxS cache, or in other words you are simply playing around with the links rather than the binaries. — Tamara Wijsman, Apr 27 '11 at 22:14

score 58 · Answer 5 · edited Apr 27 '11 at 21:45

58

Use left Shift + left Alt + Print Screen to turn high contrast on.

And use the same key to turn it off.

edited Apr 27 '11 at 21:45

Ken Bloom

499

answered Apr 27 '11 at 07:46

Searock

763

Great simple trick. – Gordon Apr 29 '11 at 13:04
Yes, one of my favorites to do on unlocked workstations, quick and easy. – Bratch Apr 30 '11 at 00:08

kizzx2 · Answer 6 · 2011-04-27T15:11:20.280

53

Put this as a .bat file in shell:startup

taskkill /f /im explorer.exe

Fix: Task Manager (Ctrl+Shift+Esc), File > New Task and type in explorer.exe

edited Apr 27 '11 at 15:11

answered Apr 27 '11 at 14:49

kizzx2

977

61

Better, schedule this bat. Make a task that will run every some minutes :) – pHelics Apr 27 '11 at 15:20
2

@pHelics: It might not be necessary. Winlogon apparently restarts the shell (explorer.exe) automatically, and the shell re-runs startup items ... – u1686_grawity Apr 28 '11 at 08:51
8

@grawity He probably means adding the .bat as a scheduled task instead of putting in shell:startup -- harder to find out (probably) and it renders temporary fix (by starting explorer.exe manually) less useful. – kizzx2 Apr 28 '11 at 09:04

score 43 · Answer 7 · edited Sep 02 '22 at 08:33

Make the most of the "Scheduled Tasks" component in Windows. Then you can make apps randomly appear or make the system shut down seemingly without cause.

Another alternative would be to write a small script (windows 7 comes with powershell) that hides the powershell window and restricts movement of the mouse to within certain boundaries.

Here is a useful links: Hide Window. And below is a code sample for moving the mouse.

[Reflection.Assembly]::LoadWithPartialName("System.Windows.Forms")
[System.Windows.Forms.Cursor]::Position = New-Object System.Drawing.Point(0,0)

Hugh Allen · Answer 8 · 2011-04-27T15:27:57.433

39

How about changing the color scheme to make text and background color the same on window titles, buttons, menus etc. It may help to select the "classic" (pre-Vista) theme first. Bonus points if you can make standard controls invisible because all their colors (foreground, text, border etc) are the same as the window background.

edited Apr 27 '11 at 15:27

answered Apr 27 '11 at 15:20

Hugh Allen

9,890

22

Also: combine with disabling the mouse. – Jonas Apr 27 '11 at 15:47
21

And changing the keyboard layout – epochwolf Apr 27 '11 at 16:18

score 33 · Answer 9 · answered Apr 28 '11 at 21:40

33

Hit them with the Ease of Access Center, which is found in the control panel.

Use the FilterKeys options disable all notification to users that it is turned on and all notification (including beeps) when keys are pressed. Use the Slow Keys setting and adjust it so the user must hold down a key for more than 0.3 seconds before a key is registered as input.

answered Apr 28 '11 at 21:40

yhw42

2,257
1
24
30

8

In combination with no mouse, pure awesomeness :D – Martin Seeler Oct 09 '13 at 20:05

rob · Answer 10 · 2011-04-27T07:40:47.567

If you're allowed to boot off a CD or USB drive, anything is possible. Once you've cleared the admin password, you can have fun.

Per the moderator note: I think the fix for anything I've listed below is pretty self-explanatory (just do the opposite of what you did to screw the machine up), but if there's something that needs clarification, please ask in a comment.

Depending on the machine, you might be able to change the right BIOS setting to make the CPU "overheat" and turn off. (I'm trying to think outside the box here...note that some motherboards let you set the "overheat" threshold, so you can just set it low without doing any damage. The fix would be to clear the CMOS.)
How about putting it on the network yourself? Then you can set up a different machine to do a remote shutdown of the target machine using Windows' built-in shutdown.exe or some other utility. Set it up as a bunch of scheduled tasks or write a script that does it every couple minutes.
If the machine doesn't have much RAM, set the pagefile to 0 MB and try to run some background processes/services that chew up all the RAM.
Do a user account batch import to create hundreds or thousands of accounts from a file you're prepared ahead of time. Pick a few at random to do sneaky things via Scheduled Tasks (like running the shutdown command as mentioned earlier).
Disable System File Protection, boot up to the console, and start renaming important files. (Keep track of the files you rename, so you can name them back later.)
If the machine has a DualBIOS (i.e., when the main BIOS gets corrupted, you can boot from a backup BIOS), try updating the BIOS and shut off the machine in the middle.
Image the machine onto an external hard drive, then install WinXP/Linux/DOS/BSD/whatever.
Boot from a live Linux CD and use dd to copy a specific range of the hard drive's contents to a file on a USB flash drive. Now overwrite that same region on the target machine's hard drive with zeros. Fix: just dd the backup file back over the same range you just corrupted on the target machine's hard drive. (don't do this if you're not comfortable with dd)
Install one of those tiny bluetooth adapters and use a keyboard/mouse from across the room to close windows, move the mouse, lock the terminal, execute other keyboard shortcuts, etc.
Disable the hard disk controller in the BIOS.
Fill up all the free space on the hard drive.

I think at least a couple of these should have the other guys scratching their heads--particularly the ones that don't require you to change anything in Windows itself. (Let's just hope they don't read SU.) :D

I would recommend against trying to overheat the CPU. That could cause permanent hardware damage, and I doubt their IT department or teacher would appreciate that. — nhinkle, Apr 27 '11 at 07:01
Point taken, although most machines have thermal protection which will turn them off before they reach "dangerously hot." Some BIOSes even let you configure the temperature threshold, so you could just set it very low and the computer would think it's overheating & shut down. The concern is if things heat up too quickly, before thermal protection can kick in--e.g. if you don't install the heatsink, and the CPU starts smoking. If you can get the computer to overheat (or think it's overheating) sometime after the OS starts booting, you'll probably be fine. — rob, Apr 27 '11 at 07:25
@nhinkle: I got the idea that he meant setting the BIOS overheat limits to something low like 50 C, not actually overheating anything. — Zan Lynx, Apr 27 '11 at 14:58

Riguez · Answer 11 · 2011-04-27T20:51:41.677

23

On top of setting up a script to force safe mode you can go under msconfig then Boot tab.

Set Safe Boot to Alternate Shell and check No GUI boot and Make all boot settings permanent after that under Advanced options... Set the Maximum memory to 256. Then disable the system Page File

Run msconfig at the shell prompt to undo the settings :)

edited Apr 27 '11 at 20:51

answered Apr 27 '11 at 20:06

Riguez

3,754

JeffSahol · Answer 12 · 2011-04-27T20:18:36.817

17

Kobayashi Maru: If you can create a VHD and get Windows to boot from that, you can break the rest of rules (except for the bios rules) since technically you are not altering the installed copy of Windows 7.

BTW A really simple hack is to use bcdedit to screw up the boot process, after /exporting, then use /import to import it to repair...though you'd need a boot disk for repairing it.

edited Apr 27 '11 at 20:18

answered Apr 27 '11 at 13:09

JeffSahol

166

3

Sadly, if OP is in college, OP is probably too young to get the Kobayashi Maru reference. :( – Shinrai Apr 27 '11 at 13:29
12

@Shinrai - Given the re-boot movie that was recently released, I think the current generation gets it now better than they would have a few years ago. – Iszi Apr 27 '11 at 14:43
@Iszi - Whoops! I forgot that scene was in the reboot film, haha. – Shinrai Apr 27 '11 at 15:27

score 15 · Answer 13 · answered Apr 28 '11 at 03:50

15

Set the "User Profile Service" in Services to Disabled.

This service is responsible for loading and unloading user profiles. If this service is stopped or disabled, users will no longer be able to successfully logon or logoff, applications may have problems getting to users' data, and components registered to receive profile event notifications will not receive them.

answered Apr 28 '11 at 03:50

9b5b

111

24

Please tell us how to fix it. – dolmen Jun 18 '11 at 10:29
@dolmen boot into safe mode and enable the service again. – Nordlys Jeger Sep 24 '18 at 19:05

Iszi · Answer 14 · 2011-04-27T15:19:37.003

Here's a couple ideas.

To augment any already proposed, which are scriptable in a BAT file, add them to AUTOEXEC.BAT. Make sure to put @ECHO OFF as the first line, and put this at the end of every command: > NUL 2>&1 This will make sure that AUTOEXEC.BAT doesn't print anything to the screen, for anyone who may be watching it run. This will also ensure that, if the troubleshooters don't catch this first, whatever bugs you put into the system via the script are restored on reboot.
I haven't seen this one in awhile, but it's one I used to love: Some mouse drivers add a tab to the Control Panel applet for calibration and orientation. Typically, this will require you to click and drag an image in the "upwards" direction so that the mouse can get its bearings. If you have this option, click the image and drag it sideways or diagonally. Make sure you know your way around Windows with the keyboard first, of course.

score 13 · Answer 15 · answered Apr 27 '11 at 13:01

13

Disable the page file and set everything you possibly can to start up... maybe write a login script that launches word, excel, power point what ever else you can find to launch that will take up resources. It won't break it but fixing it will take forever and be extremely annoying.

answered Apr 27 '11 at 13:01

Supercereal

8,753

19

Do a search for *.exe and and add them all the to the startup. :) – AttackingHobo Apr 27 '11 at 20:28
2

@attachinghobo Excellent! I like it. – Supercereal Apr 27 '11 at 20:56
1

@AttackingHobo even easier to create a shortcut to every exe, that way they will all still run! (I did this to test my first ssd and it performed surprisingly well..) – Caspar Dec 06 '11 at 06:44

score 12 · Answer 16 · answered Apr 27 '11 at 15:46

12

Have this run on startup: taskkill /f /fi "PID ge 0" /im *

It will try to forcefully kill any process who's PID is greater than or equal to zero. Probably needs elevation.

answered Apr 27 '11 at 15:46

Louis Waweru

24,631
40
135
202

score 12 · Answer 17 · edited Sep 11 '17 at 14:26

12

I know you don't want a registry hack, but I had to reverse a virus that did something similar, just about bashed my head till I figured it out.

Go to the HKCR\exefile\shell\open\command key and change the (default) and IsolatedCommand keys to notepad.exe

Then every time they go to execute a program they will get a copy of notepad instead.

To fix, you can still run the programs as long as you do it as another user (unless you change those keys as well.)

edited Sep 11 '17 at 14:26

Mokubai

92,720

answered Apr 28 '11 at 03:14

David McEwing

101

Since I cannot add an answer, I'll tack this on as a comment: If you make a copy of notepad.exe and overwrite taskmgr.exe, when the next person tries ctrl-shift-esc it will also open Notepad. A very long time ago I was in a similar situation, but the next person was a blustery old tech and so I did that trick as well as deleting explorer.exe. The computer booted to a blank background (no login prompt) and then ctrl-alt-del opened notepad. I was proud. The fix was also simple: File > Open > explorer.exe and you could get to work. Bonus points: Safe mode was broken too. – joshfindit Oct 03 '22 at 21:49

score 10 · Answer 18 · answered Apr 27 '11 at 22:38

10

Change the startup folder to be the windows folder. Windows will try to launch everything in there on startup, that's a pretty quick turnaround for annoying activity. Not too hard to fix, but really annoying because of the amount of stuff in there. It will also significantly slow down any attempt to get fixing started because stuff will just keep popping up.

answered Apr 27 '11 at 22:38

Winston Ewert

131

Simple, elegant, and frustrating. Extra bonus points if there is a reboot script about 3/4 of the way through – joshfindit Oct 03 '22 at 21:42

score 8 · Answer 19 · answered Apr 27 '11 at 19:12

8

Put every program in the Startup group multiple times. When they start the system it will bog down to absurd levels.

Also put them in AUTOEXEC.BAT. They'll boot in Safe Mode or something, fix Startup ... and it will still happen. Drive them crazy.

Fix by editing AUTOEXEC and the Startup Group.

answered Apr 27 '11 at 19:12

CarlF

8,844

Be sure to add to both all-users and the current user's startup folder. Then changing the permissions of these folders... – Macke Apr 28 '11 at 11:07

score 8 · Answer 20 · edited Sep 11 '17 at 14:27

8

A friend of mine once accidentally associated the .lnk file extension to a specific application which has the effect of meaning no shortcuts could be opened (they would all open the application). The only way to fix this is to open a command line to run any applications. Can be fixed via HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT *.lnk setting.

This was on a Win 95 machine, not sure if its still possible on Windows 7.

edited Sep 11 '17 at 14:27

Bob

61,637

answered Apr 29 '11 at 08:34

Toby Allen

3,065

2

It is possible on Windows 7. – Norbert Willhelm Dec 15 '11 at 14:28
@Norbert, I dont know, probably not. It was a Windows 95 installation if I remember correctly. – Toby Allen Dec 16 '11 at 07:46
4

But this is still possible. There are many people who accidently did this on Windows 7. – Norbert Willhelm Dec 16 '11 at 10:18

score 7 · Answer 21 · edited Apr 28 '11 at 18:11

One thing that comes to mind is disabling the Remote Procedure Call (RPC) service. I did this once on a windows 2000 machine, and evidently all "Properties" dialog windows refused to load.

The thing about this is that the only way to enable it back again was to find the service entry in the registry and change it into "automatic".

However, in windows 7 they have removed the ability to disable this service, but if you manage to remove it some other way (registry, but that wasn't allowed ), maybe removing the executable that it invokes (or the dll because it is invoked by svchost.exe) would seriously cripple the computer.

C:\Windows\system32\svchost.exe -k rpcss this is the invokation, find a way to avoid that and you're good to go.

EDIT: There is a rpcss.dll in C:\Windows\system32, if you delete that, all hell would break loose.

score 7 · Answer 22 · edited Oct 16 '13 at 17:51

Change the polling rate for usb devices as described here:

http://forum.overclock3d.net/index.php?showtopic=8088

Fix: Swap back to the old backup file.

Why is this amazing? Typing will only work when done really, really slowly. Moving the mouse will seem like the sensitivity is set very low, but is instead because it just will not pick up the movement.

score 6 · Answer 23 · edited Sep 11 '17 at 14:06

6

I'm surprised no one mentioned the C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc You can REALLY mess up someone's day by screwing with the services file or hosts file.

Try adding the line

127.0.0.1  google.com

To the hosts file. Easy to diagnose if you know about it. Not at all easy if you have no idea.

edited Sep 11 '17 at 14:06

undo

6,071

answered Apr 27 '11 at 16:53

Nate Noonen

101

20

I'm surprised you didn't read my question, like everybody else. PC is not hooked up to Internet / any network. So it's of no use. – pHelics Apr 27 '11 at 19:24
1

If you wanted to take this a step further, change the dns settings to query localhost, that way nothing resolves unless you know its IP – Robb Apr 27 '11 at 20:18

lilott8 · Answer 24 · 2011-04-29T14:11:19.800

You could also use the NTFS alternate stream capacity to further hide programs behind programs. And also fill the HDD with empty files that are hidden in the alternate data stream. Couple this with no place for the OS to put a paging file and you've mimicked the L2 cache trick.

So you can also hide a batch script behind the control panel etc so that whenever they run the control panel that triggers a batch script that opens 100000000 explorers and kills the system. Have fun with this, there is lots of room for creativity here.

Read this on ADS

Resolution/Detection: You could use a little program called "LADS" to detect the ADS or some anti-malware stuff can detect ADS. Other than LADS it's virtually undetectable. It's one of the lessor known tools of NTFS.

You are free to just delete the stream that is attached to a named data stream. Here is a "Wikipedia" entry on ADS: http://www.wikistc.org/wiki/Alternate_data_streams

Svish · Answer 25 · 2011-04-28T15:16:15.180

5

An alternative to putting the funny mayhem scripts in the startup folder (well-known) or autoexec.bat (might not work?) is to use the scheduler. There you can set things to launch periodically, when the computer boots up, after login, et cetera.

Make the task look like they belong to something already installed or windows itself, and it could be easy to overlook :)

edited Apr 28 '11 at 15:16

answered Apr 28 '11 at 13:07

Svish

39,580

score 3 · Answer 26 · answered Apr 27 '11 at 12:41

Well, one of the things i can think of would be to probably rename the %system% folder to something else. Messing with the bootloader would be another possibility - you could rename c:\boot\bcd to something else, and the system won't boot.

Both should be fairly trivial to fix with a livecd and knowing what you're doing, but should keep the system from bootin

The problem is, really, most of the ways i know to 'break' a system, really breaks a system ;p

hookenz · Answer 27 · 2011-04-28T11:41:37.037

A couple of ideas.

Change the bios to not boot from any hard drive.
Set the screen to an incompatible monitor frequency.
If using USB keyboards, disable USB in the bios completely.
Edit boot.ini and modify the flags so that it always starts in safe mode

That last one might be rather hard to track down I suspect.

See: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/239780

I just realized this might be different under windows 7, and it is. So the windows 7 method is here: http://www.edbott.com/weblog/2008/10/the-faster-way-to-safe-mode/

You could really have some fun with this one!

How to mess up a PC running Windows 7?

27 Answers27

Linked