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WINDOWS 11

By Ed Tittel • Comment about this article

Control Panel element counts are shrinking, but they remain surprisingly active and entangled in Windows controls, configuration, and management.

Although more than a decade has passed since Microsoft began migrating functionality from Control Panel into Settings, Control Panel elements remain alive and active in Windows 11. Windows consoles are also still important, and likely to remain so, as a new AI-enabled release of Windows 11 is anticipated later this year.

But the landscape between Settings and Control Panel shifts constantly. It’s changed since I wrote the first story in this series (Settings, May 6, 2024-05-06). Indeed, when Windows 11 Insider Preview Canary Build 26217.5000 appeared on May 15, it provided new-look versions of Rename this PC (in Settings | System | About) and Time & Date (Settings | Time & language | Date & time).

I created a pair of PowerShell scripts to let me identify all the unique Control Panel elements and consoles in Windows 11 for this story. Control Panel elements reside in files that end with the .cpl file extension, whereas consoles reside in files that end in .msc. A generic version of the PowerShell code looks like this:

If you open the preceding lines in a text editor and globally replace *.ext in the first line with *.msc, the script will produce a list of unique .msc files in a file named uniqmsc.txt. Do likewise with .ext and c.pl, and you’ll get unique .cpl files in uniqcpl.txt. I reproduce those two resulting lists of files with annotations in Tables 1 (.cpl files) and 2 (.msc files) below.

Please note: Because these scripts traverse the entire Windows C: drive, they do attempt to access three to five folders to which even administrators have no access rights. This is normal. The script will run to completion anyway, despite a sequence of red error messages.

I ran the CPL version of the foregoing script on a production Windows 11 Pro PC (Version 23H2 Build 22631.3593). It produced 20 unique files that end with a .cpl extension. (See Table 1.)

By way of comparison, I ran the same script on a Windows 10 PC (Version 22H2 Build 19045.4412). It produced the same list of control panel–element files as did Windows 11. It’s noteworthy that four of those elements (hdwiz.cpl, MLCFG32.cpl, inetcpl.cpl, and sapi.cpl) don’t do anything when entered into the Start menu search box or a command line. In the same vein, Bluetooth properties (bthprops.cpl) opens Settings | Bluetooth & devices | Devices. That leaves 15 remaining, still-working Control Panel elements. I do feel this number will shrink over time.

Looking back at earlier Windows 10 and 11 versions, I also see some variation in the number of Control Panel elements files by version — but not necessarily by operating system.

It’s not unreasonable to see that the number of CPL files decreases as the interval between the present (May 2024) and the image date grows. This provides a basis to presume that this total number will continue to decline going forward, as more capability makes its way into Settings from Control Panel. Windows 10 will stop moving when it hits its end-of-support date on October 14, 2025. Windows 11, on the other hand, should keep going for years.

One can construct on the desktop a special Windows data structure that takes the form of a complex folder name. It’s an easy four-step process that consolidates access to all settings and administrative tools, including Control Panel elements, into that single folder. Those steps work as follows:

Figure 1. The colorful Control Panel icon at bottom shows the God Mode folder on the desktop.

If you double-click that icon to open the folder in File Explorer, you’ll see 35 categories of Control Panel and Settings elements available for inspection. Each occupies its own subfolder and can be expanded or contracted. Those entries appear in Table 2 below, where ¹ means a Control Panel element is launched, ² means a Settings panel is launched, and ³ means a Windows program is launched that’s neither of those things. (It’s usually a program or utility of some kind.)

Here’s what’s so very interesting about exploring God Mode in Windows 11. Working through the various entries from Table 2, you’ll see that only four of them invoke Settings items. Windows Tools calls various consoles and utilities (e.g. disk management, group policy editor, optimize drives, and more) but calls neither Settings items nor Control Panel elements.

All together, these categories provide the most comprehensive way to access Control Panel elements that I know of in Windows 11. They also show that Control Panel still has many keys to the Windows OS on its aging and outdated key ring, even if duplicates also show up in Settings (e.g., Fonts). Sigh.

Running the modified script to elicit MS console (.msc) files produces variable results, depending on the hardware (especially networking hardware) installed on a target PC. That aside, again I see little difference between Windows 10 and 11 where consoles are concerned. Table 3 shows the information from my target Windows 11 test PC (Version 23H2 Build 22631.3593, the current production release as I write this).

Consoles are Windows management tools. They seem relatively immune to the drift from Control Panel to Settings between Windows 10 and 11, and in newer Windows 11 versions versus older ones. This provides some welcome stability in a mostly uncertain transition from Control Panel elements to Settings-based equivalents. In Table 3, the only hardware-based item is the last one (which indicates Qualcomm Wi-Fi and Bluetooth on the target laptop). The other elements in the list (21 in all) are consistent across both Windows 10 and 11. I consider that a strong sign of stability.

Coverage by capability is another matter. Recent issues with BitLocker and KB5034441 exposed lack of complete coverage between Settings and the Disk Management Console. Things can get interesting in a hurry in Windows 11 when some issue or gotcha falls into the cracks between Settings, Control Panel elements, and consoles. Indeed. this is what makes Windows troubleshooting occasionally more interesting than it should be, and more difficult to work through.

As the old saying goes, “The more things change, the more they stay the same.” This has been a sometimes challenging but enduring constant with Windows OS versions over the past four decades. Methinks that even though the consoles are more or less solid, Control Panel will continue to wane as Windows moves into a fifth decade after next year.

Of course, only time will tell.

Contribute your thoughts in this article’s forum!

Ed Tittel is a long-time computer industry writer and researcher. The author of over 100 computing books, Ed is also a Windows (Insider) MVP (2018–2024) who writes for numerous other websites and publications. For more info, visit edtittel.com.

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