Before Windows XP came along, the Control Panel in Windows was quite easy to navigate: you had a little bundle of icons with obvious names like ‘Mouse’, ‘Display’, ‘Add/Remove Programs’ and ‘Date and Time’. When you needed to change a Windows setting, it was easy to tell which icon would lead you to it.
In Windows XP, all these different areas of the Control Panel are split into categories, and you have to start by picking the appropriate category. However, the categories are fairly few and, if you choose, you can click Switch to Classic View for that simple list of icons.
Windows 7 and Vista have persisted with this ‘category view’, but there are now so many different options included in Control Panel that it’s not always easy to work out which category will lead to the settings you need. Yes, you can still switch to a plain list of icons – choose View by > Large icons in Windows 7 or click Classic View in Vista – but there’s a better way to find what you want.
After opening the Control Panel window, just start typing a word that relates to the setting you want to change. For instance, you might type ‘keyboard’ or ‘wallpaper’ or ‘printer’ or ‘click’. Straight away, the contents of the Control Panel window will change to show the various settings relating to what you’ve typed. It’s far quicker than hunting through all those categories and icons!
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