Rejoice! Microsoft suggests it may never truly kill Windows Control Panel

About a week or so ago, Microsoft published a new support document that is meant to help users learn about the various customizing and tweaking apps that Windows natively offers in its OS. These include common applications like Settings, as well as those geared towards more advanced users and IT professionals like the Group Policy Object (GPO) Editor or the Registry Editor. We covered it in detail in a dedicated article that you can find here.

When browsing that document Neowin also spotted what appeared to be the first official on-record confirmation from Microsoft itself about the apparent impending death of Control Panel sometime in the future.

It stated:

The Control Panel is a feature that's been part of Windows for a long time. It provides a centralized location to view and manipulate system settings and controls. Through a series of applets, you can adjust various options ranging from system time and date to hardware settings, network configurations, and more. The Control Panel is in the process of being deprecated in favor of the Settings app, which offers a more modern and streamlined experience.

 

Tip: while the Control Panel still exists for compatibility reasons and to provide access to some settings that have not yet migrated, you're encouraged to use the Settings app, whenever possible.

Following our coverage, the tech community picked up on it which subsequently led to widespread reporting.

Microsoft has since tweaked the support article and the text "in the process of being deprecated in favor of the Settings app" has now been wiped and has been replaced with "many of the settings in Control Panel are in the process of being migrated to the Settings app" perhaps indicating that the company itself is not certain on whether it will ever truly be able to deprecate Control Panel completely. Or at the very least, it is not going to happen any time soon.

The newly revised text says:

The Control Panel is a feature that's been part of Windows for a long time. It provides a centralized location to view and manipulate system settings and controls. Through a series of applets, you can adjust various options ranging from system time and date to hardware settings, network configurations, and more. Many of the settings in Control Panel are in the process of being migrated to the Settings app, which offers a more modern and streamlined experience.

 

Tip: while the Control Panel still exists for compatibility reasons and to provide access to some settings that have not yet migrated, you're encouraged to use the Settings app, whenever possible.

While this was the first such instance of Microsoft indicating the possible deprecation of the Control Panel on its own official site, the company has been hinting at this for a long while.

Such reports started surfacing back in 2011 when a leaked Windows 8 screenshot suggested that Microsoft was looking to replace the Control Panel with "PC settings". This Settings option was made with touch-friendliness in mind though the Control Panel continued to co-exist.

Later in 2015, it was expected that the company would finally do away with it as a senior Microsoft exec confirmed that "Settings will eventually supersede Control Panel."

Source

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