March 7, 2010
Q.
I do not like the Category view or the other
icon views of the Control Panel in Vista or
Windows 7. Is there a way to make it look
more like the "Detail" view in XP?
A.
Yes, and it is even better in that it will
list all the items that can be changed. This
view has many names, but I prefer to call it
Control Panel Expanded. Unfortunately, it is
not available in XP. Here is a sample of
what it looks like in Windows 7. Vista is
similar. Two sections are shown, the
"Devices and Printers" and the "Display"
section.
Clicking
on any of these items will open the dialog
that is associated with that particular
item. To be able to see the Control Panel in
this expanded view, you have to create a new
folder and give it a specific name. To do
this;
1.Right
click on a blank area of your Desktop.
2.When the Context menu opens, select New.
3.In the side menu select Folder.
4.When the new folder appears on your Desktop, name it exactly as it
appears:
CP_Expanded.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}
If you
would rather not have this oddly named
folder on your desktop, you can create it
anywhere naming it as above, and then create
a shortcut to it on the desktop where you
can name it anything you like.
To make this much easier, I have written a
little program that will create this folder,
and create an icon on the desktop with the
name Control Panel Expanded. It will have the
same icon that Windows assigns to the
Control Panel. This file is called
CP_Expanded.exe and can be downloaded from
the Download section of this site or by
clicking
HERE.
This program will not run on Windows XP.
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