Happy Hour 'Virus' Makes Computer Only Look Broken

[Guest]

The Happy Hour Virus won't fool the tech-savvy, but if you're lucky, you may be able to use it to knock off work a bit early.

Happy Hour 'Virus' Makes Computer Only Look Broken : Read more

 

[infamouswoodster]

Hmm, I guess My windows 98/ME/2000/XP/Vista/7 all came with this screen saver pre-installed ?

 

[gmarsack]

If you want to get out of work early, you could just open up a command window with Admin rights and delete your system folder. DONE! Enjoy the rest of the day off while IT deals with it.

 

[spartanmk2]

If youre IT is dumb enough to let you have Admin rights then they deserve to deal with it.

 

[cklaubur]

I have a screen saver on my laptop that simulates, among other errors, a Windows NT style bluescreen. It looks pretty realistic.

Casey

 

[wysiwygbill]

It's more fun to swap out someone else's screen saver so that a fake BSOD pops up after 10 minutes of inactivity.

 

[coolitic]

Crack the code and you get HL3 release date.

 

[danwat1234]

I remember the sysinternals bsod screensaver from back in 2002 or so, so this is now in website form?

 

[danwat1234]

Wait, that website is stupid.

 

[lp231]

Meh not as cool as the Troika's 'Newton Virus'
http/www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBJQ5085kSo

 

[husker]

Great job Toms. Virus or not this will get you fired in an instant. What will you advise your readers to do next? Yell "Bomb!" on an airplane? You see, it doesn't really matter if there really is a bomb.

 

[s997863]

IT in big companies usually isn't very tach saavy, more like just police to enforce the idiotic management's decisions instead of having freedom/responsibility to do something technical & productive. One guy wanted a newer comp and opened up his case to replace some jumper. Then he complained that his comp was broken and the IT couldn't find what was wrong and had to give him a new comp with higher specs.

 

[silverblue]

"While the animation is convincing, the font is not quite right."

Whilst at college, I was banned from the network for sending network broadcast messages. It was a Novell Netware system, and the messages would appear on the Windows desktop as popups. The only problems... were that unlike a proper screenshot, the text on said popup box was in super high resolution as well as the wrong font, meaning somebody had taken a screenshot, thrown it into Word, then put a text box over the top; the other problem being that I wasn't even at college that day. IT, the ones who'd shown me the A4 printout of said transgression, told me to speak to the dean who promptly got me unbanned (i.e. they didn't believe me, ho ho ho). If some choice phrases weren't uttered in the background at the time, there should've been.

Even to this day, I still wonder how anybody can confuse 300dpi with 72dpi (at max - more like half that in practice) blown up screenshots, let alone the wrong font. With a little bit of experience, such things shouldn't fool anybody, though judging the people I work with on a daily basis, perhaps they'd be stumped for hours.

 

[livebriand]

I fooled myself with the Blue Screen of Death screensaver once (Microsoft TechNet). Only once I started holding the power button did I realize it... dang it!

 

[Pherule]

Since the days of Windows 98 I've always wanted fake viruses. Too bad the concept has never really caught on.

 

[bombebomb]

This works fine, unless your the IT guy.

 

[Computer Forensics Expert]

Around 1990 I used to have a screensaver from AfterDark Software, which I was able to re-code and make the computer look like it was performing computer modeling on specific projects, while in screensaver mode. Since it was just a 386 machine and there were few people who understood Windows, I was able to get away with making myself look really busy, when I wasn't.

In fact, my boss came in and told me to take an early Turkey Weekend off, with pay and there was one heck of a Christmas bonus that followed!