README

The Moo Machine

The Moo Machine is an April Fools' joke Windows application created back in 2015.

Summary

Features

Once started, the application will do the following every minute:

1. Change the desktop wallpaper to one of the eight predefined wallpapers featuring cows.
2. Play between one and six sounds of cows mooing.

If you want to have a look, the wallpapers and the sounds used are located in the Resources folder.

It was designed to be run at startup and it remains dormant until the system date is April 1st. If the application is run either manually or at startup on another date, it will exit immediately.

Dependencies

The application was developed in Delphi 7, which allows it to work without any dependencies in most Windows operating systems.

Installation Methods

Simplest installation method

One simple method is to manually copy the executable into the Startup section of the Start Menu. This also has the downside of being very easy to detect and it requires access to the PC being pranked.

Copy MooMachine.exe to either:

1. For all users (requires administrative access): C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup;
2. For a specific user: %appdata%\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup, or simply shell:Startup.

Using a WinRAR self-extractable

A method which can allow pranking someone else's computer is to use a self-extractable WinRAR archive which might contain something of interest to the user.

1. Find something of interest to deliver to the person being pranked.
2. Add the innocuous files to a SFX file, along with MooMachine.exe.
3. To improve concealment of the MooMachine.exe, you can rename it something else and removing the .exe extension. One example would be using SFXData (without extension); that way, if the "victim" extracts the SFX manually, it won't catch much attention.
4. In the Setup section of the Advanced SFX Options screen in WinRAR, you can configure to Run after extraction the following:

%comspec% /C "move SFXData %appdata%\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup"

This will cause the move of the extracted SFXData to the current user's Startup.

More complex methods

Both previous methods have the downside of being easy to detect. If true concealment is desired, use the Windows Registry for start-up and camouflage the application by removing its version information and changing the name and icon of the application to something harder to detect.