One place where I worked, a favoured prank to use against people who left their machine logged in and unattended (against policy) was to take a screenshot, set this to be the desktop background, and remove all the real icons, so that you could have a laugh at them clicking on 'icons' and wondering why nothing started up.

Also, you could rotate a windows desktop 180 degrees with a certain keypress (I cant remember what) and leave them puzzled.

Yeah, that's pretty much the same thing that people in my old office used to do, too. It got you to really remember to lock your screen before leaving your desk.

As for the screen-rotation trick, I believe it was CTRL+ALT+(arrow keys). I think the 180° one was up arrow. You could turn the screen on its side if you did it with left and right arrows, too. A lot of frantic calls to service desk would ensue because someone would do it by accident and then be confused about what they had done. Was pretty sure that it lasted up until Windows 10.

One of our cats managed the rotate screen trick when doing the usual cat routine of walking across keyboard to get your attention when you are trying to work

> Also, you could rotate a windows desktop 180 degrees with a certain keypress (I cant remember what) and leave them puzzled.

Certain colleagues of mine did that to one another at one place, should the "thou shalt lock screens" edict go overlooked, to the extent you'd call it an arms race.

At the time I worked on software for HMI devices where the screen locking mechanism was utterly broken. Nobody pranked those though - I don't think they knew how (Tux FTW *grin*)

The classic i remembered (i grew up with Windows XP+):

Screenshot, rotate image 180 degrees, set as background. Remove all icons, hide taskbar. ctrl+alt+down (this rotates the screen 180 degrees). Bonus points if you flip the screensaver too!

Classmates appreciated the pranks for the most part. Teachers didn't like me, i wonder why!

In one job, I shared an office with 2 of my best mates. It was a great project, and a great team. But if you did leave the office without locking your computer, you would almost certainly come back to either a) Your screen being upside down or at 90° or b) if you were foolish enough to leave it for more than a few minutes - You would come back in, and 30 mins later, one of the guys would turn around and say "Wow L, that's a really nice email you've just sent. I really appreciate the kudos, although look I'm not interested in more than just friendship, ok...?" A quick check of sent emails would show an email having been sent praising the colleague and suggesting a bit more...".

It was all a good laugh between us, but it only worked because we really were best mates. I'm friendly with my current office colleagues, but no way would that work out here... ;)

I worked at a company that had people do the same, however the more usual one was either undying love for a colleague or I am buying doughnuts for everyone in the office as I left my machine unlocked.

We got a few rounds of snacks from the latter.

This was the same place that had a cabbage award. The person who last screwed up in a stupid way was awarded a cabbage, which they kept until the next person did something - they had to go and buy a new one when the smell got too much…..

When I was in Scouts we had the golden door knob award.

We awarded 'The Pen' for the most stupid act or comment so far recorded. You could only pass it on if another person made a cock-up of equal or worse stupidity.

It was actually quite a good pen, from a competitor, complete with logo, but it would randomly stop working. Nevertheless, it had to be on display and be used. It was very embarrassing to be awarded this prize. The threat was sufficient to ensure actions and words were considered before rash action. Our Sales Director had it most of the time.

We created a book containing phrases that defied explanation ("We're going to come up smelling on this one....")

"who we'll Regomize as 'Curt'."

Oh, CURT. My mistake...

You walked into that Trapp.

I used to do something similar, it involved moving the taskbar to the top of the screen auto hiding the taskbar and replacing the wallpaper with a screenshot with the taskbar showing like normal at the bottom.

Left your PC unlocked?

Come back to find it locked, and when you do unlock it: an unsent email in the middle of the screen "Dear [Chief Exec's name], I love you xx

A favourite prank would be to take the back off the monitor and rotate the deflection coils on the CRT through 180 degrees, then put it all back together again, but leave the screen upside down on the user's desk.

Then watch as they'd come in, tut, turn the screen the right way up and then boot up, looking incredibly puzzled when the screen would be upside down ...

Standard practice at one place I worked was to use the unlocked, unattended desktop to compose a resignation letter and leave it unsent, waiting for the colleague who had left an unlocked and unattended computer is a secure environment.

The ones with loads of languages built in. Switch to a non-western language, making it a pig to switch back if you didn't know the menu sequences needed to "Set language".

In those days, whenever I got a new phone I would go through those steps so I knew it was (eg) Menu, 4, 2, 3, OK

Paid off multiple times - not necessarily on my own phone.

"Switch to a non-western language, making it a pig to switch back"

You had half a chance if the language used the Latin character set. Thai was enough to grab another Nokia and use that as a pilot or guide. :)

The screens of the local transport (~Oyster) card recharge machines have the language selection button close enough to the balance or recharge button that half the time when you intend to recharge you get the first language after English which happens to be Vietnamese.

It couldn't be French or German or even Occitan ? :) To be fair Vietnamese is probably the most requested language given our demographics.

You just have to cancel the transaction and let the machine return to the default. I have tried navigating in the Vietnamese mode but I could swear the layout and options are different.

Actually for most people it is now a non-problem as they can use any credit or debit card instead on the buses etc or their phone's digital equivalent.

I have tried navigating in the Vietnamese mode but I could swear the layout and options are different.

That definitely used to be the case on certain cash machines around here. The default English layout had intrusive adverts and graphics, the Welsh was simple and uncluttered. Not so much these days.

It's amazing how many cashpoints and self-service supermarket tills are still English-only. There are exceptions that offer Welsh and usually at least one other language (Polish used to be common) but it's far from being the majority as far as I can see.

M.

If one of my colleagues ever saw an unattended, unlocked computer, he would do a google image search for something random and rude, then lock the computer.

As we work in a school, leaving an unlocked computer anywhere near students is an incredibly foolish idea, but some people took a long time learning their lesson, and in the meantime would unlock their computers to find images that were not always totally safe for work...

I remember that sequence was called the Secure Attention Key (SAK) under NT4.

I think it was originally a mainframe thing but the idea was the SAK was certain to get you back to the monitor etc and could not be reassigned or intercepted.

I don't think that was necessarily true of later Windows.

I guess if you don't use a SAK secured screen locker you get the SACK.

FWIW Poettering's Systemd 257 introduced ctrl-alt-shift-esc for this purpose.

Before PCs were commonplace in offices (in fact, when offices had shared phones), the place I worked had a strict clear desk policy. We worked with confidential drawing and specifications but, since we worked closely with the manufacturing areas, the office wasn't within the more secure part of the site. There were always staff present during the day and visitors weren't allowed to roam free, but when you left for home at the end of the day, your desk had to be clear - by that I mean NOTHING on it. All paperwork, including filing trays, had to be put into secure cabinets, the keys of which were taken away by security. Desks drawers had to be locked, too, but only personal belongings were allowed to be kept in them. If you didn't clear your desk before leaving, it would be cleared for you - and you would have to report to the department head to explain why you were about to go to security to reclaim your work. One strike and it was a verbal blasting, two strikes and you said goodbye to any annual bonus, three and it was external redeployment!

... I put together a "screensaver" image for Sun gear that made the screen look like it had a couple of bullet holes in it. I occasionally deployed it on workstations where the user (engineer) had walked away, leaving himself logged in. Quite realistic on the colo(u)r Trinitrons of the day ... realistic enough to draw many a scream of "What the FUCK‽‽‽‽" from people who should know better.

Many years ago in the CRT days, he took the back off one. Loosened the scan coil clamp and slightly rotated them, then put everything back together. The individual who's machine that was done to was a general pain in the arse to just about everyone in the company - including the maintenance bods, so it took a surprisingly long time to find and fix the erm... fault.