Computer Frustration

wild_eyed

i am looking for programs that test a users frustration with a computer. its for a friends thesis, so any programs out there that will make the user mad on purpose either by being very un-user friendly , or that go wrong every single time.

any help would be really appreciated, as this friend is really stuck.

hamster

Heh heh... how about Elite 3 (the original unpatched version) using an old version of DosFellow under XP? That should do it! And turn up the sound when listening to the midi if it works!

No seriously.... try some long-winded command line version of some program where the parameters are vague and no help is provided....

Or he could try installing an old version of Redhat (ie before version 6) and try installing a modem on it... maybe not so frustrating as time consuming....

Or try some PL/SQL (with a query on a group of huge tables with no indices) or programming with pointers in C or something and see if some interesting memory leaks occur.... :eek:

hamster

Oh is this strictly limited to software?

If not, try reducing the amount of ram available... ie, try 48-64Mb on XP or 8Mb on Win98. Raise the frustration bar by putting in a few faultly simms. Try overclocking the board and work with it crashing every so often. Try an insane resolution that barely readable. Play the regional settings for keyboard. Alter the mappings. Put in a very old vga card in there if at all possible... like an S3 Virge or Tseng ET4000 and use the generic 16 color drivers in windows. Oh what fun!

hamster

Oh and of course.... a 14.4K modem (internal winmodem if possible that locks up every so often or gives a open port every so often)... a reboot every ten minutes. Go to a Flash6 enabled site. The possibilities are endlessly frustrating!

wild_eyed

strictly software,

hamster

Well... ok... any bloaty software that is slow to run and get around is definitely a candidate. If the PC is old then even Word can be frustrating. Try formatting a few tables and Images into it. Try some of Excel's wizards...

Capt'n Midnight

Crash on Controll + Scroll lock ?
The blue screen of death screen saver - looks great on NT4 - not as much fun on 2K / XP

A small batch file runing in the background - use choice from Dos/windows 9x to wait 99 seconds (five lines) - before using a route change command to disable internet access for a minute (use choice again)

:Loop
choice /t,y:99
choice /t,y:99
choice /t,y:99
choice /t,y:99
choice /t,y:99
route change 0.0.0.0 mask 0.0.0.0 192.168.x.y
choice /t,y:60
route change 0.0.0.0 mask 0.0.0.0 192.168.w.z
goto loop

Reprogram the keyboard so the use has to use ALT + scan codes

Turn on Accessibilites options and mouse trails and slow the mouse down completely - swap the buttons - change the double click settings - also chage key click times- all can be stored in a reg file that can be applied later.

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Get a word document with tables. open it up in a different version of Word suggest 97 (save as in necessary) export the table to excel - add a little data and then put it back into the original word document in the original version. Their task is to get the format back the way it was.

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Oldie - NT4 server - get your hands on the 120 day demo disk - make three install disks from this. Then hand then the disks and get them to install NT from these and a genuine NT4 server CD. Then get them to install Arcserve 6.x - put it on the NTFS system drive of a server which has only 99MB free - after they have got it installed and setup and running move the clock forward 119 days so they have to re register it - ( by then the system drive should be full) THEN ask them to restore a small file - preferably one from the end of the data drive. By the time they are ready to restore it the one hour shutdown timeout from the Demo CD should kick in. Now the system is a mess - can't reinstall or restore without moving files and the server will be rebooting once per hour - and reinstalling / restoring won't solve that problem (and the fix on the M$ site don't work either.)

Karoma

any of those silly (VB) programs that move the button around the screen... (with a timer preferably + no exit function + disable ctrl+alt+del)

also,
see "Windows Annoyances" (book..google.. http://www.annoyances.org/ )

LoLth

how about windows ME? That really does it for me...

Or if possible get someone to fill in a web form and randomly change an entry on a random part of the form (make the form very repetitive) when the submit button is pressed.

Then the form comes back with "invalid entry" and the person has to go back through and check... oh and re-enter some of the more boring parts

Karoma

or just make it a really long form (don't use anything to break it up.. just row after row... ) only to have the submit button do nothing... always fun.