What happens when you delete system32?

Their OS fails.

Not much. System32 contains vital pieces of the Windows operating system.

your internet runs superfast!
your computer will not start anymore. you will have to reinstall the OS.

I suspect the victim will be beating the crap out of your friend, who by the way, happens to deserve it for that little trick. Have the victim save docs and photos to a flash drive via safe mode (if they can get there) before reinstalling Windows. See ya…Gary aka wtf

You finally accomplish what common sense has so far failed to get you to do: destroy your Windows OS and move to Mac OS.

Try it yourself, I suggest you use the computer of your ‘hilarious friend’.

Doesn’t it stop porn from being paid for ? !!!
Everyone should be doing this little trick , Seriously tho the pc is now needing OS reinstalled, when your friend betas the other guy its perfect time for starting a youtube account and sending the video and picture slideshow there.

@dkenneth :: Run “sudo rm –rf” in the the terminal on OS X. I have seen the same thing happen to OS X users too.

Please don’t mess with the rm command unless you know exactly what you are doing. It still scares me.

[ Off-topic: ]

johnpowell, it’s not rm that scares me… it’s the shell’s substitution logic.

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My first PC ran DOS 1.0. I picked up DOS syntax pretty quickly and learned that if I wanted to change the extension on a bunch of files, it’s easily done like this:

rename *.txt *.boo—change all filenames ending with .txt to end with .boo instead.

Indeed, in DOS, to delete all files in a directory, you simply type delete *. *. Easy. (forgive the spacing, adjust for textile)

—

Now, take this DOS-based knowledge to your first UNIX system. You want to rename a bunch of files again to change the extension. If you try DOS-style syntax…

mv *.txt *.boo

…then you’re putting yourself in a bag of hurt. Because the UNIX shell pre-processes those asterisks before processing the mv command. The actual execution is:

mv 1.txt 2.txt 3.txt *.boo

Yah, take it from me, that’s a sure-fire way to lose one’s C++ programming assignment less than 15 minutes before it’s due.

Couple UNIX’s default behavior not to ask “Are you sure?” before doing something damaging (unless you provide the -i switch) and yah, anything bad can happen pretty easy.

—

Lessons I’ve learned the hard way:
– try echo‘ing a potentially dangerous command first: echo rm -f /path/*
– never run as root by default
– never run anything with sudo unless you’ve tested it
– never trust your interpretation of the shell substitution
– never expect cron to run something exactly the same as your interactive shell

…and I could go on and on.

Still, UNIX shell beats the crappity smack outta lame-ass DOS syntax. And don’t even get me started on Windows Powershell.

Yeah never type anything in terminal unless you know EXACTLY what will happen. If you only have an idea, chances are you’re wrong lol.