The Mysterious Case of Repetitive Announcements: A Personal IT Dilemma
As a professional in the IT field, I pride myself on my ability to troubleshoot nearly any issue that arises. However, today I found myself scratching my head over a peculiar situation with my Windows 10 setup (version 20H2). Every 30 minutes, my laptop unexpectedly announces, “Did you know?” followed by an interesting factoid. This persistent interruption quickly became not just an annoyance but a puzzle that I couldn’t solve.
Initially feeling a bit embarrassed, I dove into my research mode, searching for terms like “Did you know PC speech” and “my PC keeps telling me factoids.” To my dismay, I found no relevant solutions online, and my attempts at resolving the issue through standard troubleshooting methods were fruitless.
Despite disabling Cortana, the assistant seemed oblivious, continuing to chime in with captivating tidbits about topics ranging from the curious term for a hairball (known as a bezoar) to historical anecdotes such as the unfortunate fate of Marie Antoinette. With my laptop serving as my main work tool for the day, I couldn’t ignore these recurrent interruptions happening like clockwork—right at 10:30, 11:00, and so forth.
I double-checked that none of my hotkeys were causing this peculiar behavior and ensured I had no suspicious extensions or recent installations that might be responsible. It was a frustrating experience, leaving me perplexed as to how I could allow something so trivial to evade my expertise.
The Revelation
After a series of aggravating, repeated announcements, the mystery was finally unraveled. It turns out that this entire situation was a clever prank orchestrated by a coworker. The culprit had cleverly devised a .bat file that executed every 15 minutes, programmed to read aloud quotes from an XML file featuring a slew of peculiar trivia. My coworker had set this schedule using a PowerShell script, and needless to say, I was left both annoyed and amused by the elaborate prank.
This experience serves as a reminder that even for those of us in tech roles, sometimes the simplest answers can be the hardest to find—especially when a mischievous colleague is involved! If you ever find yourself facing a strange technical anomaly, remember to check for potential pranks before diving deep into a troubleshooting rabbit hole.
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