pranks on computers–the modern version…

Earlier this week a friend Sjonia posted a comment on Facebook…  First you should read this

All postings are provided “AS IS” with no warranties and confer no rights. The inclusion of any key sequences does not imply endorsement by Microsoft to press said referenced keys.  Pressing the said keys is at your own risk.  If you read to the very bottom of this post you should have most of the information needed in case something you did not expect happens on your computer running Windows.  Save all your work, don’t do this before a big important meeting or presentation.  Please don’t do this and be missing when someone else comes back expecting to get something done.  I really don’t have time for additional follow up (other than how this worked out for me at home…)

“Right now on your Windows computer hit Ctrl-Alt-Down Arrow and let me know how that works out for you.”

…and then began the string of comments

So if you haven’t already tried it, read on (and if you have, flip your desktop upside down so that you can continue reading this rightside up).  It’s a hotkey turned on by default with many Intel Graphics drivers for Windows (7 and 8 and 8.1 – just confirmed at home).  So what if you want this mayhem but you don’t have the Intel Graphics card, driver and little utility that makes this easy to toggle on (CTRL+ALT+ARROW DOWN) and off (CTRL+ALT+ARROW UP)?

www.intel.com/support/graphics/sb/cs-016829.htm – towards the bottom of the page documents the hot keys…

CONTINUE ON AT YOUR OWN RISK – BUT DON’T LET THAT STOP YOU…

Right click on your background and choose Screen Resolution which should bring up something like this:

Where it says Landscape – change it to Landscape (flipped) NOW WAIT A SECOND BEFORE PRESSING APPLY OR OK!   Have you figured out what you are about to do? Will you be there when the other user comes back expecting to use this computer? Is it April 1st, 2015 (hopefully I’ll remember to update this post in the spring!)? It’s pretty weird on a desktop because the mouse becomes hard to control (if you have touch, it’s a lot easier to fix or if you can simply rotate your display). If CTRL+ALT+ARROW DOWN worked then just press CTRL+ALT+ARROW UP (much more stealth and can drive whoever the user is bonkers!). Wait for an update – I’m going to do this to our family computer (after sending my wife who will be home when the kids return this blog post!)

I hope to see a lot of Best Buy and other electronics retailers trying to troubleshoot this in the near future (unless they use something like deep freeze and then your fun at the expense of others has a limited duration!)

Enjoy!