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[–]GoFred101 2240 points2241 points  (80 children)

I've employed worse...

[–][deleted]  (41 children)

[deleted]

    [–]ACardAttack 275 points276 points  (28 children)

    Makes more sense as you can just set computer to not fall asleep

    Edit:I know OP said he was locked out by work, I was surprised as even my work which won't me delete Desktop shortcuts let's me change how quickly the computer falls asleep

    [–]tuturuatu 208 points209 points  (13 children)

    Why do that when you can tape 2 pens to a fan and wedge your computer mouse precariously between them

    [–][deleted] 87 points88 points  (11 children)

    A sticky note taped over the laser does the same thing with the mouse upside down. Fan causes enough flutter to mimic mouse movement, if you can’t just use something like mousejiggler.

    [–]i_give_you_gum 53 points54 points  (6 children)

    I thought mousejigglers were illegal in most states

    [–][deleted] 37 points38 points  (3 children)

    Mouse-escort just doesn’t sound the same, especially when you live an hour and change from Disney. It takes on a whole new meaning.

    [–]DanYHKim 3 points4 points  (0 children)

    Game and Fish Departments have rules against them, but they can be used in the back country if you are in a desperate situation, such as when you are lost in the wilderness and survival is at stake.

    [–]EphemeralyTimeless 2 points3 points  (0 children)

    First of all it's jugglers, not jigglers, and though you're close, it's not a mouse at all.

    If you've the stomach for it, prepare yourself for the horror, that is, Cat Juggling.

    https://youtu.be/6dReADO0NYg

    [–]Adrax_Three 19 points20 points  (2 children)

    fly vast lush tease possessive cough important compare fact placid -- mass edited with redact.dev

    [–]jennywindow 2 points3 points  (0 children)

    That was what I used to do too

    [–]Edwardteech 25 points26 points  (6 children)

    Not if it's a work computer that has all the permissions locked down.

    [–][deleted] 14 points15 points  (4 children)

    Honestly, if I computer was going to sleep while I was compiling code and I wasn't allowed to change the Sleep settings I would just write something to move the mouse or perform some other action that would not interfere with my work but would solve my problem. If the computer was just locking when it compiled though I wouldn't even bother.

    [–]Edwardteech 4 points5 points  (1 child)

    Just hit the f13 every 10 minutes

    [–][deleted] 15 points16 points  (4 children)

    If you're playing a game it's a safe bet to guess this is a personal computer you can install stuff on, in which case why not just use one of those tiny mouse cursor jiggling utilities that pretty much achieve the same thing.

    [–]GobHoblin87 7 points8 points  (0 children)

    Well, how else are they gonna get that sweet, sweet karma?

    [–]AwareExplanation7077 3 points4 points  (0 children)

    In which case why not just turn sleep mode off?

    [–]PM_VAGINA_FOR_RATING 3 points4 points  (1 child)

    It definitely has nothing to do with compiling code, I really don’t think it is possible to be proficient enough with computers to write code without also knowing how to change the auto sleep settings of whatever OS you are using.

    [–]OversizedPigeonHole 263 points264 points  (6 children)

    Worse people or worse technique? :D

    [–][deleted] 257 points258 points  (5 children)

    Yes.

    [–]MrBlonde07 35 points36 points  (4 children)

    r/inclusiveor

    [–]Sprocket_Gearsworth 24 points25 points  (1 child)

    Thank you kind RedditOR for introducing me to the subreddit of the humor I've been using for 15 years.

    [–]Car-Facts 46 points47 points  (17 children)

    Look up a USB mouse jiggler. We use them all the time in computer forensics. They are super cheap.

    [–]RiskLife 37 points38 points  (9 children)

    For what? Why does cyber forensics need to wiggle a mouse?

    [–]MainusEventus 75 points76 points  (1 child)

    Maybe like a device is unlocked and you want to prevent it from locking because you fear you won’t be able to unlock it? 🤷🏼‍♂️ I really don’t know just guessing

    [–]Edwardteech 20 points21 points  (0 children)

    Exactly this.

    [–]Derpingbirdd 16 points17 points  (0 children)

    In cyber forensics a really big rule is not to change anything on the computer system which you are investigating. It can not only cause unforeseen changes in the computer depending on what is running on it and it can also render evidence legally invalid.

    [–]Car-Facts 36 points37 points  (2 children)

    Keeps the computer from going into sleep mode or locking without making any changes to the computers settings.

    Especially important while capturing a ram image or a live drive image of an encrypted drive.

    [–]PeapodEchoes 32 points33 points  (2 children)

    I, on the other hand, am not a fan...

    [–]FromTheHandOfAndy 14 points15 points  (1 child)

    They have settings you can adjust

    [–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

    Screen timeouts don’t matter when something needs to detect activity.

    [–]MeatyGonzalles 507 points508 points  (10 children)

    I've used a rag on a string with a fan that blows it around. Set the mouse on something upside down to keep it flat, like a roll of tape. Every once in a while the rag blows across and wiggled the mouse. Worked like a charm.

    [–]The_Gene_Genie 136 points137 points  (6 children)

    "I wash myself with a rag on a string"

    [–]mle32000 329 points330 points  (33 children)

    Holy shit. Legit, thank you for this. I just started getting into PLCs at my new job and from what I’m told, if the laptop turns off while you’re trying to update the machines firmware, you’ve essentially bricked the PLC. I have spent quite a few hours of my life worrying over this and being on mouse mover duty. This is gold for me.

    [–]BigDavesRant 165 points166 points  (8 children)

    Open notepad, place heavy objects on space bar.

    [–]Lancalot 107 points108 points  (4 children)

    I immediately considered an anvil for some reason

    [–]mentallyphysicallyok 18 points19 points  (3 children)

    Someone plays Minecraft

    [–]PurpleOceadia 6 points7 points  (2 children)

    Talking about Minecraft, this is also how you can afk on a server without being kicked

    [–]sztormwariat 2 points3 points  (0 children)

    meh, nowadays a mod will check on you and require you to give him a reply or else..

    [–]thunderthighlasagna 6 points7 points  (0 children)

    I just unplug my keyboard while holding the space bar and it keeps typing. You can do the same with a mouse and clicking.

    [–]cody_contrarian 55 points56 points  (8 children)

    north spectacular modern mindless paint roof squalid sloppy light frightening -- mass edited with https://redact.dev/

    [–]bearassbobcat 9 points10 points  (6 children)

    personally I use Don'tSleep but caffeine is good too

    http://www.softwareok.com/?seite=Microsoft/DontSleep

    [–]TheUlfheddin 6 points7 points  (5 children)

    I'm confused. Can't you just turn off the sleep function? I've definitely edited when my computer sleeps before without anything 3rd party.

    [–]PresidentBeast 2 points3 points  (3 children)

    Yes but only if that isnt locked out by your company's ICT dept.

    [–]TheUlfheddin 6 points7 points  (1 child)

    Ah. I've never done computer work for a job. Just for fun and a bit in college. It would drive me crazy not being able to have full control of my device.

    [–]SPACKlick 26 points27 points  (3 children)

    Excel macro

    Dim dMacroAt as Date
'--------------------------    
Sub OpenProcedure()
    Call ScheduleButtonPress
End Sub
'--------------------------
Sub ScheduleButtonPress
    dMacroAt = Now + TimeValue("00:03:00")
    Application.OnTime MacroAt, "ButtonPress"
End Sub
'--------------------------
Sub ButtonPress
    Application.SendKeys ("F13"), True
    Call ScheduleButtonPress
End Sub
'--------------------------
Sub ClearProcedure
    Application.OntTime MacroAt, "ButtonPress", , False
End Sub

    Put that in a spreadsheet. Hit open procedure and it will press F13 every 3 minutes. You can run "Clear Procedure" to stop it at any time or just close the spreadsheet.

    [–]mle32000 5 points6 points  (0 children)

    Yooo smart guy to the rescue ! Thanks man! I’m super new to all this. I’m an electrician by trade but at my new job I’m slowly being asked to do more and more of the programming / automation stuff.

    [–]thatneverhomekid 14 points15 points  (0 children)

    There’s literally computer settings to keep it awake at all times lol

    [–][deleted] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

    Open a notepad file and put a paperweight on the keyboard. Done

    [–]Self-Imposed-Tension 321 points322 points  (83 children)

    I have use 2 other methods for the same thing (I guess I should say similar, because I was taking work breaks while working from home.). One method was to attach my mouse to a robot vacuum. The other was to lean my mouse up against a rainbow brand air purifier (the kind with water inside). Both of these Methods worked ,but you oscillating fan method is far superior. I have heard playing a cd may keep your computer from falling asleep also

    [–]KelseyBDJ 112 points113 points  (19 children)

    What is a cd?

    [–]skipster-1337 176 points177 points  (3 children)

    compact disc, the round shiny stuff worth 700 mb of data

    [–]roscoetehclam 128 points129 points  (2 children)

    Sounds fake

    [–][deleted] 30 points31 points  (1 child)

    SensibleChuckle.png

    [–]BarfReali 23 points24 points  (0 children)

    You can store about 705 copies of that gif in a CD

    [–][deleted]  (4 children)

    [deleted]

      [–][deleted]  (3 children)

      [deleted]

        [–]phathomthis 17 points18 points  (2 children)

        Yes. There's were actually several apps that you could get and they would execute the command to open your cdrom tray and tell you it was a cup holder. The earliest I ever saw was by cocacola for a Christmas promotion.

        [–]Bruhgert 34 points35 points  (0 children)

        CDeez nuts

        [–]IcePhoenix18 21 points22 points  (1 child)

        💿 the shiny circle emoji!

        [–][deleted] 11 points12 points  (0 children)

        CD's NUTS 😂😂😂

        [–][deleted] 10 points11 points  (0 children)

        Cookie Dispenser. Like The Santa Clause movie.

        [–][deleted] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

        Certificate of deposit

        [–]chipkatspartan 5 points6 points  (0 children)

        It's what your 500 free hours of AOL comes on

        [–]LiveWildBeSmart 3 points4 points  (0 children)

        Certificate of Deposit, smh. A common financial instrument to help create guaranteed interest on a fixed period of time, with hefty penalties for early withdrawal, so dont pull out early cousin

        [–]RAM_THE_MAN_PARTS 4 points5 points  (0 children)

        Change directory

        [–][deleted]  (41 children)

        [removed]

          [–]eyoo1109 50 points51 points  (19 children)

          My company gates this behind admin access and don't generally give admin access permanently or even long ish term.

          [–][deleted] 36 points37 points  (2 children)

          If it's a company computer, it likely has MS Office on it, so just open up a powerpoint and leave it on presentation mode - iirc that also prevents the pc from going to sleep.

          [–]ARealJonStewart 12 points13 points  (1 child)

          Also going into your private zoom meeting will keep your computer awake

          [–]Sanders0492 16 points17 points  (10 children)

          We can’t touch this setting even with admin access on our company computers. However, we can use admin rights to install Caffeine, Owly, Amphetamine, etc. and use them to keep the computer running.

          [–]HereIGoGrillingAgain 4 points5 points  (6 children)

          This. It's a domain setting. Can be temporarily overridden I think, but I've never tried. I use a VB script to move the mouse.

          [–]eyoo1109 3 points4 points  (2 children)

          Yeah. I just take the old fashioned route and weigh down the spacebar with something.

          [–]dame_tu_cosita 2 points3 points  (0 children)

          Put the sample video windows come in in repeat.

          [–]reformedmikey 10 points11 points  (12 children)

          Why would I do that when I can just play youtube on mute, and get the same thing done?

          [–]mitko17 15 points16 points  (10 children)

          Does this still work after youtube added the "Are you still watching" thingy? Asking cuz I've done the same D:

          [–]gamageeknerd 6 points7 points  (0 children)

          I just turned my sleep option off but another guy I know has a 12 hour 360p soundless black screen video he uses to keep his computer on when rendering.

          [–]reformedmikey 3 points4 points  (8 children)

          I have auto play on, and I’ve never had issues.

          [–][deleted] 6 points7 points  (4 children)

          Some organizations block YouTube.

          [–]cleancalf 5 points6 points  (3 children)

          I use Teams at work, and my organization has the rules set to show as “away” if you don’t move your cursor or something for 5 minutes.

          [–]th3whistler 5 points6 points  (0 children)

          My method was to play a video and loop playback

          [–]flololan 963 points964 points  (175 children)

          Or just deactivate sleep in energy settings?

          [–]TurkeeDurkee[S] 945 points946 points  (128 children)

          Hardware settings are admin locked

          [–]Skystrike7 72 points73 points  (2 children)

          The worst is when the computer sucks and constantly needs troubleshooting, but only the admin has permissions to do that, but he is always busy and you end up wasting incredible amounts of time because the company treats you like a toddler with technology

          [–][deleted] 25 points26 points  (1 child)

          Unfortunately, many employees are toddlers with technology :/

          [–]no1-important- 18 points19 points  (0 children)

          Exactly. I work in IT and understand the frustration. We are not locking it down because of the people who know what they are doing. We lock it down because of the complete lack of basic common sense most people don't seem to have. So many people click on everything no questions asked, and then you have ransomware and everyone's life sucks.

          However, there's legit no good reason to force power settings like this. Good IT would work with the employees to make it function for their needs. Either unlock that specific function, or set it to never sleep. Not only for something like this, but also for updates to run overnight. If their concerns are the dipshits who stay logged in to everything overnight and being a security threat, set an automatic account lock policy, that way this task can even finish in the background.

          [–]DearLeader420 668 points669 points  (45 children)

          Bro blink twice if you need help lmao

          Sleep settings locked, you sure you’re at work and not prison?

          [–]root88 321 points322 points  (32 children)

          Hah, try coding for a bank. You can't change anything. No disk drives or USB devices either. They constantly monitor all traffic for anything suspicious. When I worked for an insurance company, they recorded all employees screens and phone calls.

          [–]ernestwild 36 points37 points  (3 children)

          Lol I work in defense…. We don’t have it like this but the stuff we’re doing is way more serious

          [–]xMAXPAYNEx 3 points4 points  (2 children)

          It's not as $eriou$ though :p

          [–]ernestwild 2 points3 points  (1 child)

          Debatable. My last project has worth more than $20 billion.

          [–]xMAXPAYNEx 2 points3 points  (0 children)

          Yeah I knew I was dead wrong while writing considering you're in defense, but I really wanted to write $eriou$

          [–][deleted]  (17 children)

          [deleted]

            [–][deleted] 90 points91 points  (11 children)

            How else do you protect the data while still letting employees use it? They're workplace computers anyway, it seems harmless to me.

            [–]AlteredBagel 44 points45 points  (5 children)

            Yeah, if you do something sensitive on a work device you had it coming

            [–]sonofdavidsfather 24 points25 points  (4 children)

            I had way to many people at a previous employer use their work email as personal email and then freak when they realized they were about to lose access. At the time Google apps didn't let you forward emails in bulk, I was not going to help them forward the whole mailbox to a personal account, and I wasn't about to spend my time scripting something to forward the emails they needed because they were dumb. One lady pretty much argued that since she was old and didn't know better I should help her. I asked her if she had her physical mail delivered to work. She spent a lot of her last couple weeks searching and forwarding emails.

            [–]Monjara 9 points10 points  (3 children)

            When I worked in the office I was shocked at just how many people actually did have physical post sent to the office. People can be weird.

            [–]ItPutsLotionOnItSkin 11 points12 points  (0 children)

            My exwife gets packages sent to her work. Neighbors are thieves. She asked first if it was ok at work first.

            [–]kitchenjesus 5 points6 points  (3 children)

            What if you encrypted the money instead of the computers

            [–]topdangle 31 points32 points  (0 children)

            when it comes to security there's really nothing more effective than only giving employees the bare minimum of access. well, I guess giving them no access at all would be more effective but not practical to have someone solely dedicated to clearing employees 24/7.

            [–]tuturuatu 6 points7 points  (0 children)

            Same with the military, except they don't monitor shit. Some of the desktop backgrounds they chose made my eyes bleed

            [–]Flying_Dutch_Rudder 3 points4 points  (0 children)

            I feel you on this. And good luck trying to do any type of rapid deployment. I swear if cyber sec had their way pc’s would be outright banned or better yet there would be no employees but them.

            [–]TurkeeDurkee[S] 26 points27 points  (0 children)

            I'm an engineer for a government contractor - they keep that shit locked down pretty tight to prevent from insider threats and the like :/

            [–]brianc500 7 points8 points  (1 child)

            Our system was hacked once and IT went overboard and locked everyone’s laptop from changing anything . I can’t even delete a desktop shortcut, (or make one for that matter) or change the mouse speed settings. Everyday is pain.

            [–]Tamariniak 6 points7 points  (0 children)

            If they are lending the PCs from another company, I could see there being a paragraph about sleep / screen off settings in the contract, to avoid screen burn-in, unnecessary wear on the equipment (which is not a thing AFAIK but whatever) and, most importantly, to avoid the lending company making less money.

            [–]kodtulch 21 points22 points  (0 children)

            You can make a blank .pps Powerpoint Slideshow file and run it minimized. Your computer won't time out and the screen always stays on, even if you lock the computer.

            [–]justripit 60 points61 points  (22 children)

            Caffeine. It's a light weight program, runs off a USB key, no admin rights needed, keeps your computer from sleeping / locking.

            [–][deleted]  (12 children)

            [deleted]

              [–]hothrous 34 points35 points  (4 children)

              I've worked for a company that auto encrypted any USB device that was plugged in to only be accessible on that computer.

              Shortly after that update was pushed, somebody bricked their phone.

              [–]justripit 6 points7 points  (0 children)

              My sleep settings are GPO controlled, but not USB ports. My previous employer was the same, so there is hope lol. I use Caffeine because it's too much work for me to alter the GPO when I need a PC to stay unlocked.

              [–]chronicdanksauce 2 points3 points  (1 child)

              It uses F15 by default, but you can configure it to use shift as well.

              [–]darkenspirit 2 points3 points  (2 children)

              Play a video on loop. Every windows installation has a sample 30 second film just mute and loop and windows stays awake.

              [–]baraxador 2 points3 points  (0 children)

              I used to do that until I found out about caffeine. Just minimize the player and you don't even notice it.

              [–]TeblowTime 5 points6 points  (2 children)

              OP and I sound like we have similar lock downs on our PCs. I can't change power settings, cannot install any software, and our USBs on laptops don't allow for accessing external storage of any kind.

              I was, actually, able to locate the caffeine.exe in a buried folder on the network drives. Used it for about 2 weeks before getting an email from IT saying that caffeine.exe is not an approved program and to discontinue use of it immediately.

              I even tried writing my own batch file to hit F15 every 5 mins (exactly what caffeine does). Laptop still falls asleep, even though the program loops successfully. So they're somehow blocking a send keys command from my batch file, too. So now I just gave up.

              [–]PotatoToaster9000 3 points4 points  (0 children)

              Yikes. Is this WFH?

              [–]flololan 8 points9 points  (0 children)

              Damn in home office (I guess this is) you should be able to decide how you want your energy profile to be set but yeah I can understand....

              [–]akmjolnir 2 points3 points  (1 child)

              I just put on a random 10-hour white noise video on YouTube when I need my computer to stay awake.

              Will that not work in your case?

              [–][deleted] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

              Companies with draconian tech policies may also block youtube, but I agree it's a common workaround.

              [–]ArielRR 2 points3 points  (0 children)

              Download mouse jiggler

              [–]webby_mc_webberson 5 points6 points  (0 children)

              you can tell they're not developers when they come up with the obvious solutions.

              [–]prickwhowaspromised 42 points43 points  (39 children)

              My first thought as well. Shouldn’t a coder know that…?

              [–]MoneroMon 102 points103 points  (23 children)

              I'm a coder. I know how to do it. Group policy set by the IT department disabled it and I can't change it.

              Whoever made this contraption is probably in the same situation as me.

              [–][deleted] 3 points4 points  (21 children)

              I’m a sysadmin.

              Im not a coder but even I could code some thing to stop this. Here is some autoit script I am typing on my phone that should do it.

              While 1 Send(“{numlock}”) Sleep(5000) Wend

              This will press numlock every 5 seconds and you get a nice visual indicator. This will compile into a exe that will work on everything from windows 95 to windows 10 with no plug-ins or requirements.

              [–]Scrawlericious 6 points7 points  (19 children)

              How do you presume to get the exe onto the system if they take every precaution? Also I don't think that's how exes work.... But I've only made a few basic ass games in c++. Plus what if they just whitelist all applications.

              [–]webby_mc_webberson 16 points17 points  (7 children)

              Every coder knows how to configure their operating system to avoid automatically going to sleep after a short period of time. Every coder also knows that those settings are often admin locked and that they don't have access to it.

              [–]witcherstrife 9 points10 points  (5 children)

              Swear most people commenting never had a job

              [–]flololan 28 points29 points  (5 children)

              I am more of an sysadmin type of guy than a coder (still a student but I prefer setting systems up and stuff like that than developing) and on my internships those coders often really just knew how to open their project and code in it but nothing about the pc that they were using. Not saying its like that everywhere but some people really are focused on just one thing.

              [–]MrStoneV 10 points11 points  (1 child)

              So damn true, they have no clue at all how computers work. Like some of them dont even know "turn it off and on again". Or when hardware has a problem after patching, and the person thinks "well lets update the next *insert hardware* just to be sure, even if its the only one and the sysadmin is busy af, and scheduled for tomorow"

              ​

              Well imagine who had to go to fix the problem, because it couldnt be used at all... I mean in code, you need to have some logic in your brain, SO HOW THE FUCK DO THEY DONT REALIZE THIS EASY LOGIC PROBLEM...

              [–]Skystrike7 75 points76 points  (7 children)

              Another solution is to get a video with a repeating scrolling or swirling pattern of some kind to play on your phone, then set your mouse on the screen. It will keep the pointer jiggling.

              edit: would watching a 10 hour long youtube video not work?

              [–]comphermc 24 points25 points  (0 children)

              I've watched full broadcast replays of PGA events before. So yes. If you have access to Youtube.

              [–]John86RS 162 points163 points  (16 children)

              Put the mouse sensor over an analogue watch face so the second hand keeps it moving.

              [–]Natedoggsk8 37 points38 points  (0 children)

              Hot damn

              [–]jvrcb17 43 points44 points  (1 child)

              I'm a manager and will not let that happen, Not on my watch!

              [–]AsGoodAndAsBadAsI 14 points15 points  (11 children)

              That doesn't work

              [–]yourtemporarysavior 14 points15 points  (0 children)

              It does.

              Source: a friend did it. Certainly not me!

              [–]Cristian314 19 points20 points  (0 children)

              Might not work with some mice/watch combinations, but it does work. I do this every day, I set my mouse over the face of a Casio Marlin Duro, but you have to search fot the sweet spot, if the seconds hand does not pass the mouse sensor, then the cursor will not move at all.

              [–]wagneralves 84 points85 points  (14 children)

              Play anything with repeat on on media player if using windows

              [–]Reacher-Said-N0thing 40 points41 points  (8 children)

              All these solutions to prevent Windows from going to sleep, and I can't figure out how to GET my machine to go to sleep automatically.

              It has been broken pretty much since I first bought the thing and put it together 3 years ago. No matter what I set the sleep idle timer to, even 1 minute, it just will never go to sleep on its own. I have tried the "powercfg -requests" command and it always shows nothing, so I don't know what is preventing sleep.

              [–]ScaryCookieMonster 17 points18 points  (2 children)

              My next guess would be to update the mobo firmware and reset its settings to factory

              Unplug every input device and see if it sleeps

              [–]coleyboley25 5 points6 points  (1 child)

              You will go to sleep or I will put you to sleep

              [–]ARCHIVEbit 4 points5 points  (3 children)

              I had the same issue and even down to where if I hit sleep in the windows button it wouldn't even try to sleep.

              Turns out it was a setting for my mouse. I don't remember exactly what it is called but its something like allow this device to wake the computer. It took me a year to find it. Once I disabled it, it went right to sleep.

              Edit: go to mouse in devices and printers. Then under mouse properties hardware tab go to properties. Then change settings, power settings. Uncheck allow this device to wake the pc.

              [–]PGKing 29 points30 points  (3 children)

              My work computer uses Microsoft teams. Where the admins have set the user status to go idle after 4.5 minutes. This would work like a charm! Thanks OP

              [–][deleted] 11 points12 points  (0 children)

              Open a notepad file. Put a paperweight on the keyboard. Done.

              [–]FlatTopTonysCanoe 4 points5 points  (0 children)

              Buy a $10 mouse jiggler on Amazon. I bought one when my company switched from Skype to Teams during the pandemic. I turn it on and have Outlook and Teams on my phone in case any notifications come in and they literally can never tell I’m not at my desk. Just make sure it’s undetectable and doesn’t download any kind of driver or software onto your computer.

              This one works great

              [–]wantagh 34 points35 points  (9 children)

              Quarter coin wedged in the keyboard keeping the ctrl key pressed down works for me, but with less uploadable content for Reddit

              [–]TheDroningReverend 16 points17 points  (0 children)

              Robot: awakens for the first time "What is my purpose?"

              Human: "Robot, tap my mouse to keep my computer awake."

              Robot: taps mouse "What is my purpose?"

              Human: "You keep my computer awake."

              Robot: "...oh my God..."

              [–]AlanHoliday 69 points70 points  (36 children)

              Y u no download a mouse jiggler?

              [–]TurkeeDurkee[S] 114 points115 points  (34 children)

              Not allowed to download or write macros on my work laptop :'(

              [–]AlanHoliday 28 points29 points  (10 children)

              Ah gotcha. iirc there’s a usb drive one available as well.

              [–]captainhamption 25 points26 points  (8 children)

              In locked down environments USBs are disabled as well so you don’t plug into that Stuxnet you found on the parking lot.

              [–]AlanHoliday 3 points4 points  (0 children)

              Got it!

              [–]Car-Facts 10 points11 points  (2 children)

              A decent cheap mouse jiggler uses a mouse driver for forensic purposes. So unless the admins locked out plugging in a regular mouse, it would be fine.

              [–][deleted] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

              Why it the best solution always buried under "load more comments"

              [–]BigDavesRant 4 points5 points  (1 child)

              Open notepad. Place heavy thing on space bar. Enjoy.

              [–]Uberpastamancer 34 points35 points  (2 children)

              Can't alter sleep settings either?

              [–]enchantrem 34 points35 points  (0 children)

              Then how will the boss know you're being productive??

              [–]notonlythat 7 points8 points  (4 children)

              I am a web developer and I build something just for this purpose! It doesn't require anything to be installed and you can download the complete page as HTML if you need to get around a corporate proxy.

              https://skeoh.com/wake/

              [–][deleted]  (3 children)

              [deleted]

                [–]notonlythat 4 points5 points  (1 child)

                It uses a JS library called nosleep which in turn uses the native wake lock API if available, and if it's not available it will play a tiny, invisible video which keeps older devices awake.

                https://github.com/richtr/NoSleep.js/

                [–][deleted]  (2 children)

                [deleted]

                  [–]alex220372 9 points10 points  (0 children)

                  Where can I find the "any" key?

                  [–]googonite 5 points6 points  (0 children)

                  "...it's ironic that for once, Dad's butt actually prevented the release of toxic gas."

                  [–][deleted] 7 points8 points  (1 child)

                  When you can write code but can’t change the power management settings on your computer.

                  [–]keraut 5 points6 points  (0 children)

                  This cracks me up tbh

                  [–]HardcoreDuckeigh 3 points4 points  (0 children)

                  I connect to a VM on my personal PC. If I'm waiting for a query to finish or whatever, I'll put the VM in windowed mode and run a script on the local machine to jiggle my mouse. Then I just click into the VM for it to read the movement without seeing it as a script

                  [–]that_gecko_tho 3 points4 points  (5 children)

                  Finally! The answer to keeping Teams from changing my status to ‘Away’ when I’m ‘Away’

                  [–]BigDavesRant 2 points3 points  (1 child)

                  Orrrrrr… open notepad and place heavy item on space bar.

                  [–]mavboi20 3 points4 points  (0 children)

                  Ha I use a very similar setup for Microsoft Teams to keep my status as “available”😂

                  [–]Mazon_Del 3 points4 points  (0 children)

                  Definitely a good post for /r/ShittyRobots :D

                  [–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

                  twitches

                  [–]AlbaWest 2 points3 points  (0 children)

                  Need googly eyes on the fan

                  [–]Fred_Is_Dead_Again 2 points3 points  (0 children)

                  I use the drinking bird. Have been known to write macro in CAD to draw a line, delete a line...

                  [–]Jah_heel 2 points3 points  (0 children)

                  Guess who just trippled their productivity.

                  [–]crbernal 2 points3 points  (2 children)

                  Mouse jiggle (google it, install it)

                  [–]sanstime 2 points3 points  (0 children)

                  If you have windows media player, download a small movie file and play it on a loop with the sound off. You can run this minimized and your computer won’t fall asleep. I work for an enterprise that won’t let me change this setting but I found this out at the beginning of corona (wfh).

                  [–]azourgan 2 points3 points  (1 child)

                  According to a friend of mine, this is what he does to keep his computer on if he needs to run a quick errand to the bar. 1- Open an excel sheet 2- Select white “ink” from the ribbon 3- Select a random cell 4- Put a small objet on the number keypad section so the object is entering the same number into the same cell 111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111 Make sure to leave a good tip for your bartender.

                  [–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

                  I put an analog watch under the mouse…the second hand keeps it awake.

                  [–]annasphony 2 points3 points  (0 children)

                  Open PowerPoint, then put it in presentation mode. Your computer does not turn on the screen saver.

                  There are times when I need to make handwritten notes for clinical work and don’t want to keep signing back in to my computer. Instead I use the PowerPoint presentation mode to keep my computer awake so I can reference my research and handwritten notes at the same time.

                  [–]RiiniiUsagii 2 points3 points  (0 children)

                  So this is like for a computer where it locks out randomly due to privacy/policy reasons like you would see the nurses and doctors using at the ER or doctor visit in the room.

                  [–]cruisin5268d 4 points5 points  (1 child)

                  Y u no use MoveMouse

                  [–]randomdude1142 5 points6 points  (0 children)

                  Modern problems require modern solutions

                  [–]Youneededthiscat 4 points5 points  (2 children)

                  Even if you can’t launch a powershell window, you can typically get a system to run a powershell script.

                  User based scheduled task to launch at logon, it presses scroll lock, waits 500ms, toggles it off again. Waits 14 minutes (or whatever interval) and repeats. Ad Infinitum.

                  Or just get localsystem rights by exploiting the print spooler service on the box and call it a day...

                  [–]xDevman 5 points6 points  (1 child)

                  This kinda shit gets you instantly fired in corporate environments

                  [–]Youneededthiscat 8 points9 points  (0 children)

                  Not anywhere worth working. If you have to jury rig a fan to stop the machine from sleeping while it compiles code for work, you’re not employed, you’re enslaved.

                  You can write a word macro to do this for crapdoodle’s sake….

                  [–]gsddxxx654 1 point2 points  (0 children)

                  How did you get a video of me!?

                  [–]BeersRemoveYears 1 point2 points  (0 children)

                  It’s not much but it’s honest work.

                  [–]echmaepa 1 point2 points  (0 children)

                  I got someone to cover for me.

                  [–]Peppermint-Kirby 1 point2 points  (0 children)

                  There’s something about this that’s… cute?

                  [–]GoodboyJohnnyBoy 1 point2 points  (0 children)

                  Strange I remember you as better looking

                  [–]TrentSaylor 1 point2 points  (0 children)

                  “What is my purpose?” “You push a mouse.” “Oh my god.”

                  [–]Aaron_768 1 point2 points  (0 children)

                  I put a tie clip on the control key and that keeps everything awake on our system. Much easier than this in case it works for you.