Prank: Freeze Windows desktop to do nothing

One of the worst pranks is to make one on the victim's computer the same as his, but not be able to click anywhere.

desktop screenshot 7

You're incredibly bored and April 1st is approaching. Opportunity to play an incredible prank on a friend of yours, replacing his desktop with a similar one that won't make the slightest click. That is, wherever he presses, on any icon they will not respond.

Chances are your friend will freak out as they will think their system has been hacked. Even if he reboots he will still have the same problem again, so he will begin to panic and think about reinstalling the operating system.

In this prank you basically take a photo of the work surface and place it as its background image. You remove that active is on the desktop and so you are left with a simple photo, similar to the normal desktop but does not interact with any clicks. Let's see how to do it:

step 1: Close all open windows so that only the Windows desktop is visible, then press Win + Shift + S to open the Snipping Tool (Snip & Sketch in ).

step 2: Click on “Full Screen Snap” to take a picture of the entire computer screen.

microsoft snip sketch modes

This will instantly take a screenshot of the entire screen, like this:

desktop screenshot 1

step 3: Click on the captured image to open it in Snip & Sketch and save it with whatever name you want.

desktop screenshot 2

It will probably be saved as a .jpg image.

step 4: Go with Explorer to the folder where you saved the photo, right-click on it and select “Set as desktop".

desktop screenshot 3

step 5: Right-click an empty space on the Windows taskbar, then click Taskbar Settings.

Click "Auto hide taskbar in desktop mode".

desktop screenshot 4


step 6: Close the Settings app window, go to the desktop, and then select all desktop icons.

Drag all the marked icons to the Recycle Bin. This will discard all the actual desktop icons and leave only the Recycle Bin. However, the icons will look like they are still there!

step 7: The Recycle Bin remains from the Windows user desktop, but not for much longer. Press Win + R to open the Run dialog box.

desktop screenshot 5

There type and desk.cpl ,,5, then press “OK”.

desktop screenshot 6

In the Desktop Icon Settings window, uncheck Recycle Bin.

step 8: If you check the desktop now, all icons will look perfectly normal. However, if you try to click, or right-click, or interact with the icons in any way, nothing will happen.

desktop screenshot 7

Taskbar icons will also be unclickable. Rest assured that once someone is on such a screen they will panic and take a long time to figure out what's going on (if they ever do).

Reverse the prank
If you want to undo your prank, repeat step 7 and choose to show the Recycle Bin.

Double-click the Recycle Bin icon to open it, sort your deleted files by deletion date, find the desktop icons you deleted and restore them.

Repeat step 5 to make the taskbar visible again and finally change the desktop background.

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Written by Dimitris

Dimitris hates on Mondays .....

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