Get rid of unwanted applets in the control panel
Posted by: wizardcreations on: February 15, 2008
Now i don’t know about you but i hate the new category based control panel that was introduced in windows xp (below).
I much prefer the older “Classic View” in the control panel becuase i can find the applets that i want much easier this way. There is one problem, that is that the control is now flooded with so many applets and most of the time i am only using a couple of these. It would ne so much better if i could get rid of the ones that i didnt need…
well there is such a way and I’m gonna show you guys (and gals) how to do it.
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Click the start button
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if your in xp then click run if you in vista use the search bar
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type in regedit to open the registry editor
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in the registry editor go to
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HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\ControlPanel\don’t load
as you can see from the name of the key “dont load” any strings that are in here whose name is the same as the applet you want to hide will not be loaded when the control panel is opened. So all we need to do is put in a new string of the applet we want to hide.
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right-click “dont load” key
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go to new
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click on string value
now in your new string type the name of the applet you want to get rid of, the actual names of the applets are different from what you see on the control panel so i have listed some below. in the pciture below also you can see me hiding the accessibility options by typing access.cpl.
Accessibility Options = access.cpl
Add Hardware Wizard = hdwwiz.cpl
Add or Remove Programs = appwiz.cpl
Display Properties = desk.cpl
Game Controllers = joy.cpl
Internet Properties = inetcpl.cpl
Mouse Properties = main.cpl
Network Connections = ncpa.cpl
ODBC Data Source Administrator = odbccp32.cpl
Phone and Modem Options = telphon.cpl
Power Options = powercfg.cpl
Region and Language Options = intl.cpl
Speech = sapi.cpl
Sound and Audio Devices = mmsys.cpl
System Properties = sysdm.cpl
Time and Date = timedate.cpl
User Accounts = nusrmgr.cpl
Some of these are available on windows xp and some of these on windows vista or both. If you want to undo any applets you have hidden then just delete the string from the “dont load” key. once you have made the string close down the registry editor and the next time you open control panel the applet you entered will have gone.
thanks for reading
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