In the latest preview builds, Microsoft has removed all shortcuts that allowed you to access the retired pages of the Control Panel. In other words, you can no longer right-click within the File Explorer and select ‘Properties’ to open the retired ‘System’ page of the Control Panel.
Likewise, Microsoft has even blocked CLSID-based IDs and third-party apps. Open Shell and Classic Shell, are also no longer able to launch the hidden System applet of the Control Panel.
Now, when a user tries to open the retired Control Panel page, they are brought to the About page instead.
This is a good thing. The weird, split-personality nature of Windows is odd, uneccesary, and needlessly complicated, and it’s high time Microsoft fully commits to something for once when it comes to Windows. Whether or not the ‘modern’ path is the one most OSNews readers want Microsoft to take is a different matter altogether.
This is not good. As long as a single old-style Control Panel page without a Metro equivalent exists, I might as well use the full Control Panel (even with the use of a third-party tool), instead of being bounced around between Control Panel pages and Metro-style screens, which sometimes don’t even use the same words or information presentation style.
This is one of the reasons I still use Windows 8.1: You have a full Control Panel (mostly). The other is I don’t have to care what my “active hours” are. All updates are 10min tops. And they don’t break stuff.
Agreed, this sucks. Just yesterday I had a need to rename a local account on a workstation and the Modern UI simply doesn’t allow for it. I had to open the old school Control Panel to do it.
And yes, I know I could have done it through PowerShell or Local Users and Groups, but old habits die hard.
Quote: “This is a good thing.”
How? How is “removing access” and not “cleaning up UI mess” a good thing?
Also, how is “removing content” without a *proper* alternative a good thing?
Just try to change the date and time and you’ll move from Windows 10, Vista, XP and 3.11 panels just to do so. Really nice. And now Microsoft has announced he will add another UI layer to all that UI crap.
“Just try to change the date and time and you’ll move from Windows 10, Vista, XP and 3.11 panels just to do so.”
Odd, for me I right click on the clock in the system tray, choose “Adjust Date/Time” and go the Settings page to do so (all modern UI).
So 1) how often do you need to do that? 2) Even if you do it often do you concede that most people don’t have to do it much (if at all)? 3) Can you give me a more relevant example?
Most of the complaints feel very “You moved my cheese!” Not lying the new look, or that the UI is inconsistent, or fine grained control was lost. Yet these all come down to registry settings that anyone could write an alternative control panel app to manage for power users
Sorry I meant “not liking” not “not lying”
I do agree with you Thom, they’re doing a more Windows coherent UI and we should see the end result in 21H2. Coherency is why I liked the Mac (OS X days). They keep working on their new API which I think will be the real new one even if win32 and .Net apps are going to stay here for quite a long time…
If they’ve reached such a level of maturity, system wise, and now all what’s left is UI design, I can understand they have to busy their people to justify their wages. But if something is proven to work, what’s the point of changing it, just for the “sake” of it ? I mean, Windows 7 was mostly flawless, Windows 10 was such a deception (slow printing, bluetooth randomly disconnecting, unreadable flat UI, …) I cannot understand why so many people praises for the “need of evolution”. “Look, the UI is more consistent now”. Yeah, wasn’t Windows 7’s UI consistent ? Vista ? XP ? They broke things with 8 and are now doing damage control for the past 7 years for what benefit ? UI aestetic ? If at least they were not breaking things in the updates, but no, even that they cannot ensure it anymore. “But hey, Windows is more secure than ever!!!” LOL
Kochise,
I agree, but it posses a conundrum in business: how do you sell something over and over again if you don’t have a moving target? Microsoft was increasingly struggling to convince users to upgrade operating systems. People stuck with XP forever and every indication was that win7 was going to remain popular even longer ignoring successive versions of windows. This is why microsoft decided to proactively bump users off of old versions using increasingly coercive windows updates that became outright deceptive towards the end. Microsoft did this in spite of all the complaints to avoid loosing marketshare and make win10 more relevant. Microsoft was so convinced that charging for new windows upgrades would be a net liability in the future that they declared windows 10 would be the last version of windows.
On the one hand this could be seen as a pro: “I never have to update windows again, win10 will be supported indefinitely”. But on the other hand users have to implicitly accept that windows 10 isn’t a fixed set of features that they can control, microsoft is in the drivers seat. Windows users have lost the ability to protest new changes, which was by design. The “windows 10” moniker doesn’t change but the OS does. This helps microsoft solidify it’s ability to sell more in-OS ads and more power to automatically push and replace user’s applications.
https://www.theverge.com/21310611/microsoft-edge-browser-forced-update-chromium-editorial
On the linux side it would be similar to rolling releases, like the one debian has, but there has to be some implicit trust that the maintainer is acting in user interests. Debian has earned my trust, meanwhile microsoft and apple for that matter make me wary of power plays that put themselves ahead of the community.
At first I thought this was about the “System Properties” control panel applet (sysdm.cpl) and was rather worried – there’s a lot it does that Settings doesn’t currently cover.
But it seems it’s just about the Explorer link page called “System” which… eh. It is more information-dense than the toy that is the metro Settings app but it’s no great loss.
I love the old Control Panel applets because they fit in 640×480 screens, Control Center pages don’t fit in my 4k screen and have less stuff, for no reason.
640×480 should be forbidden by law, these days.
larkin,
That would go against the separation of church and state…
http://www.osnews.com/story/28617/a-constructive-look-at-templeos/
Haha. Joking aside though, I have actually experienced some problems with dialogs that don’t fit on screen, especially with low res laptops or on the change resolution dialog.
If you dig into the ancient scrolls (specifically, VESA’s “Safe Mode Timing Standard” specification) you’ll find that 640×480 and 720×480 are the only video mode timings that are guaranteed to be supported by all monitors.
This makes 640×480 very important as a fall-back to use when things aren’t working right (e.g. when a suitable video driver hasn’t been installed yet); and is therefore especially important for tools you need to use to fix problems with a system’s settings.
I can no longer turn off fades and slides now that the Advanced System Settings is gone. I’m not happy about this. I usually set a page file to 400MB minimum, when setting up a solid state drive. Windows no longer lets me do so. The last computer I assembled and installed v.20H2 on, set the page file at 2-GB with no obvious way for me to change it to a lower number, so less of the SSD is used to page, when adequate RAM is installed.
This is not an advancement. It’s Microsoft telling us that they don’t care about the longevity or speed of our new systems.
It is still possible to customize the Page File. It just does not have a nice UI.
https://www.windowscentral.com/how-change-virtual-memory-size-windows-10
Ironically they start with the legacy control panel app, but there are detailed instructions below for the command line.
I think this really is the ‘right’ direction.
1. Make a nice UI for things ordinary people might want to change
2. Have a good command line for ‘advanced’ things and Windows has made a lot of progress with it’s command line access
Basically, like Linux…
Settings, System, About, Advanced System Settings. That wasn’t so hard, was it?
I don’t disagree with your point that Microsoft shouldn’t remove settings or ways to get to them without an alternative. However, providing an example which then invalidates your point is not a good strategy and, furthermore, hampers the argument later even when legitimate examples are brought up.
This is how I have set the page file since forever. In 20H2 it no longer exists. The option is removed. Do a clean install with 20H2 and see for yourself.
At least we can still diable hibernation for SSD systems, for now.
Or Settings -> Search “Advanced System Settings”
Well, good and bad.
It’s a good thing in terms of reducing the schizophrenia of Windows, but a bad thing in that not all functionality of the old Control Panel has made it into the new Settings app. This means we’re going to have to rely more on registry hacks, GPE, and tweaking apps to change certain things.
Honestly don’t like this. I know exactly where everything is in the control panel and I don’t feel like this needed to happen.
Sometimes, Thom, i question your competence as a tech journalist. I would normally be in agreement, but when the new settings pages offer less functionality than the original panels, this just seems like a user-hostile, and administrator-hostile move from Microsoft.
I disagree with the user hostile thing. I think it matters what settings are being removed/changed and how much they matter the vast majority of users. I am willing to bet you are a power user, and so you will seek out the apps that will inevitably come out that let you tweak the settings that are gone. However if the changes result in more people being able to admin their own computers then that is a net good.
It is also my personal experience with the average people I know, far more of them are able to figure out how to do what they want than before. YMMV
And the vast majority of the power users upset over this can’t give me good tangible examples of settings that are gone that really matter. I am happy to be proved wrong, but a lot of this feels like hating change. Again YMMV
Aside from the fact that PC Settings is an absolute abomination which should have never been released.
And that is the result of wrapping ab OS environment around a web browser. A Jekll and Jyde, Harvey Twoface mess to clean up.
haven’t seen a good replacement for ncpa.cpl yet