98

We were all 16 once right? When I was 16, my school had a network of Windows 2000 machines. Since I was learning java at the time, I thought learning batch scripting would be fun.

One day I wrote a script that froze input from the mouse and displayed a pop up with a scary “Critical System Error: please correct before data deletion!!”. It also displayed a five minute countdown timer, after which the computer restarted.

I may or may not have replaced the internet explorer icon on the desktop with a link to my program on the entire student lab of computers. Chaos.

Comments
  • 5
    That's horrible! And Hilarious.
  • 16
    People who use IE deserve it
  • 1
    @Bennerant well see the time he's talking bout
  • 4
    Idk about you.
    BUT I HAVE NEVER BEEN DUCKING 16!!!!!!
  • 2
    @gitpull
    Haha we’ll see about that!

    Totally unrelated request for info - your profile mentions you’re learning x64 assembly? I’m super interested in getting lower level than C, do you mind pointing me to some resources for learning x64 assembly that don’t assume knowledge of x86? Good *introductions* are much harder to find than for 32 bit systems.
  • 2
    @Diactoros for sure.
    I've like 8 to 20 YouTube videos, if that's okay for you. As far as I can recall it, he (the YouTuber) did work with x64. He also taught about registers of 32 bit, but the series is mostly about 64 bit.
  • 1
    @gitpull
    Shoot me a link.
  • 1
    @gitpull 📌 for the link too :)
  • 3
    When I was 16, I found some scripts on the school network and executed them. Well, turns out they actually were used to "batch shut down" all PCs at the end of the day. I heard some teachers lost unsaved work when the shutdown was executed. But it turns out people who can't secure their network also are unable too tell which student accessed them so I really never heard anything back from it.
  • 0
    @Qwby hahaha that’s gold! Much better it was you and not someone actively malicious modifying that script to do something worse.
  • 3
  • 2
    Hahaha I did the same. When I was 15 I wrote a batch file in school lab to display a similar scary message with a countdown that said your system is being destroyed in x seconds. And saved it in startups everywhere I possible could and created a scheduled task to automatically recreate it.
Add Comment