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Recently asked on Yahoo! Answers:

How to Make a fake error message on notepad?

Hey guys i wanted to know how to make a fake error message on my computer using notepad so i can send it to my friends and scare them as lyke a april fools joke
if you know plz tell me thanks peace out guys

I actually have a much meaner trick that’s a staple gag among help desk people, one that exploits the fact that even otherwise competent computer users aren’t all that observant. It takes a few steps to pull off, but it works 9 times out of 10 to totally frustrate people, so it’s well worth the effort.

Basically, what you do is replace their desktop wallpaper with a picture of their current screen, then remove all the real icons and taskbar — so that clicking on things doesn’t work at all.

The first step in this trick is to take a screenshot of the target computer’s desktop.

1. Press the keyboard’s Print Screen button — it tends to be on the top row of the keyboard, to the right of the F12 key.
2. Open Paint: Start –> All Programs –> Accessories –> Paint.
3. Choose Edit –> Paste; the screenshot now appears in the program.
4. Save the file as a bitmap; it’s easiest to simply save it to the My Documents folder with a name you can easily remember.

You should now have a photo that looks something like this [click thumbnail for larger image]:

The second step is to hide all the user-made icons on the user’s desktop. To do that:

1. Open the computer’s My Documents folder.
2. Create a new folder in there; give it a name that you’ll remember!
3. Open the folder you just created.
4. Drag and drop into that folder all the desktop icons except My Computer, My Documents, My Network Places, Internet Explorer and Recycle Bin (if you don’t see those icons on the desktop, that’s OK).
5. Close the folder.

Now, we need to get rid of the icons we didn’t move into the folder we made. To do that, we’ll download TweakUI, a handy, and free, Windows Powertoy made by Microsoft:

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powertoys/xppowertoys.mspx

The download link for TweakUI is on the right-hand side of the page. Once you’ve downloaded it, you’ll need to install it; it only takes a couple seconds.

With TweakUI installed, you’re now ready to disable the icons.

1. Go to Start –> All Programs –> Powertoys for Windows XP –> TweakUI. The program will open.
2. Click on the word Desktop in the left-hand column.
3. Uncheck any checked boxes on the screen. It should appear like the image below [click for larger image].
4. Click OK

With all the icons off the desktop, we now need to move the taskbar so that it’s both hidden and won’t pop up if we put the mouse over it.

1. Right-click on some blue space in the taskbar and choose “Properties.”
2. Check off the box that says “Lock the taskbar.” If it’s already off, that’s fine, leave it off.
3. Click OK.
4. Left-click and hold on some blank space in the taskbar; move the mouse to the right, so the taskbar popus up to the right-hand side of the screen. Let go of the mouse button.
5. Place your cursor over the left-hand margin of the taskbar, until it turns into a double-headed arrow <-->. This will be a delicate operation.
6. Once you have the double-headed arrow, left-click and hold, then pull the left margin all the way to the right of the screen. Let go once you’ve reduced the taskbar to no more than a mere sliver on the right-hand side of the screen.

Finally, we need to replace whatever wallpaper image the person had been using with our screenshot. To do that:

1. Right-click on a blank part of screen and choose “Properties.”
2. Click on the Desktop tab.
3. Click on the Browse: button, and navigate your way to My Documents (or wherever you saved the screenshot of the target computer, back at the start of this process).
4. Select the screenshot and click OK.
5. Click OK to close the window.

Here’s a shot of the Display Properties dialog box to help you [click for larger image]:

The person will now have a desktop that looks exactly like what they are used to using, but nothing will happen if they click on any of the icons!

Yes, that’s straight out of the eighth grade, but it’s pretty funny to watch the first few times, and it doesn’t hurt anything. Recovery is simple:

1. Pull the left-hand margin of the taskbar back out.
2. Click-hold-drag the taskbar back to the bottom of the screen
3. Re-lock the taskbar.
4. Change the desktop wallpaper back to the previous image.
5. Run TweakUI again to restore the icons.
6. Drag back all the user icons onto the desktop again