Windows XP Control Panel

Windows XP Control Panel, Shortcuts and Control.exe As the name suggests, Control Panel is where many important system settings can be changed or adjusted. Since so many vital functions can be found there, it is worth looking at some aspects of how it works. We will also consider some ways of quickly accessing this very important system area. Going over the entire panoply of functions is too much for a single article but shortcuts for a few frequently used functions are given. The standard way to open Control Panel is through Start-Control Panel. There are two methods of displaying the contents. One is called the "Category View" and displays tasks by generalized categories as shown in the figure below.

Choosing a category leads to another box with a further choice of tasks or icons for specific control panel applets. The figure below shows the choice when "Performance and Maintenance" is clicked .

A second way of displaying Control Panel is called the "Classical View" and displays icons for individual applets. A partial view is shown below. Some of these applets may have several tabs that open different functions.

Control Panel Applets

Some of the components of the Control Panel are special system folders but many are determined by a group of files with the extension CPL. Most of these files are in the folder WindowsSystem32; some that are part of application software may be elsewhere. To find which CPL files are on your system, go to Windows Search and search for all files with name *.cpl. The table below lists some of the common CPL files. CPL files can be used to directly access various features of Control Panel by opening them with either Rundll32.exe or Control.exe. By this means, scripts or shortcuts can be written for immediate access to particular functions. Commands using these files can also be entered into the Start-Run line. Note that some CPL files are multi-functional and require additional parameters to invoke the various functions. Parameters use the "@" sign and a zero-based integer. Tabs are denoted by additional indexes (not necessarily zero-based integers). More details are given in the section on shortcuts below.

Table I. Some Control Panel Applet Files

File	Function	Tabs (number in parentheses is index n discussed below)
access.cpl	Accessibility controls	Keyboard(1), Sound(2), Display(3), Mouse(4), General(5)
appwiz.cpl	Add/Remove Programs
desk.cpl	Display properties	Themes(5), Desktop(0), Screen Saver(1), Appearance (2), Settings(3)
hdwwiz.cpl	Add hardware
inetcpl.cpl	Configure Internet Explorer and Internet properties	General(0), Security(1), Privacy(2), Content(3), Connections(4), Programs(5), Advanced(6)
intl.cpl	Regional settings	Regional Options(1), Languages(2), Advanced(3)
joy.cpl	Game controllers
main.cpl	Mouse properties and settings	Buttons(0), Pointers(1), Pointer Options(2), Wheel(3), Hardware(4)
main.cpl,@1	Keyboard properties	Speed(0), Hardware (1)
mmsys.cpl	Sounds and Audio	Volume(0), Sounds(1), Audio(2), Voice(3), Hardware(4)
ncpa.cpl	Network properties
nusrmgr.cpl	User accounts
powercfg.cpl	Power configuration	Power Schemes, Advanced, Hibernate, UPS (Tabs not indexed)
sysdm.cpl	System properties	General(0), Computer Name(1), Hardware(2), Advanced(3), System Restore(4), Automatic Updates(5), Remote (6)
telephon.cpl	Phone and modem options	Dialing Rules(0), Modems(1), Advanced(2)
timedate.cpl	Date and time properties	Date & Time(0), Time Zone(1), Internet Time (no index)