It’d be fine if 1) everything from Control Panel is implemented and properly working and 2) everything stays consistent (because otherwise, as other folks have mentioned, at one point written tutorials even with screenshots quickly become obsolete). I don’t see this happening any time soon.
Maybe instead of that they can start encouraging people to use the command line, although even fewer settings are reachable though there.
Their settings pages are the worst; full of white space, finding what they considered “advanced” settings is usually a pain in the ass, and everything is dumbed down to a mind-numbing extent.
I’ve hated Settings pages with a passion since they were introduced, and always typed the full .msc I was looking for.
the loss of info density in favor of making everything fingerable has been one of the worst things to happen to anyone slightly inclined at managing systems. i hate trying to manage things in a touch based UI. so much fucking scrolling and wasted space. it does look nice , but fuck is it a productivity killer.
I really hate that you can only open one settings page at a time. There is no justification to making you lose your place you’re working on just because you want to adjust another minor setting. With the old interface I can e.g. have network and sound settings open at the same time and I don’t know why they took that away.
I have been able to live with everything else, but this is the one that kills me every time.
I also dislike the design layout. Eg. I much prefer the control panel version of Disk Management than the settings purely from an aesthetics stand point. Each disk and their partitions are just easier to see and differentiate from others.
the control panel they’re taking away is largely just antiquated and not used anymore in favour of settings app anyway
except any advanced user relies in that instead of the garbage settings menu
There are still things that don’t work in the new UI. A common example for me is changing the output of speakers on my htpc. Sometimes after an update it reverts to 2.0. Need to launch the old sound control panel to set it back to 7.1.
Or some network settings are not in the new “sinple” ui.
The only positive setting I can think of for the new settings ui is proxy settings finally being moved out of IE.
Or advanced power plan.
Users complain about changes being made and then they complain that change doesn’t happen enough.
I guarantee you they’ve only ported over about half of the Control Panel’s features. The common stuff, sure. The rest…
Maybe instead of that they can start encouraging people to use the command line
LOL, there’s no more common phobia among Windows users than the CLI. EVERY Linux discussion “BUT ZOMG CLI COMMANDS!” (when realistically a novice user can avoid them most of the time, and they absolutely are more efficient for helping someone via lemmy post or similar than figuring out what version of what DE they have and trying to tell them the 12 clicks they need to do for the same task)
between the powershell push, wsl, and sudo for windows they are pushing command line usage for advanced users though
I can’t argue with that, but I still take exception to the idea that only advanced users should be willing/able/unafraid to use the CLI. (not that I’m suggesting that you personally are pushing that viewpoint)
When you click a button, you have to read and interpret the label on that button, then hope the person who programmed it actually did program it to do what it is labeled to suggest, and sometimes even well meaning devs make this ambiguous. Plus, you have to FIND the button, which is kinda the subject of many of the discussions here in this very thread.
You go learn what ls does one time, and now you know how to list the contents of a directory. Spend two minutes each learning ps aux and grep, and now you know how to find process info for firefox (or whatever), plus you don’t need to know more than the very most basic things about grep to use it to search a text or conf file for a particular string. Or learn the ffmpeg command that you use most often for recursively processing a directory full of video files, and now you don’t spend 20 minutes mucking around with handbrake or whatever when prepping files to toss onto your Kodi box (I’m just pulling that one out of my butt). Hell, yt-dlp for downloading videos from just about anywhere is better than any gui tool I ever used.
I think it’s totally valid for people to prefer a gui, but I find it a little foolish that so many people just seem to intentionally shut off their brain when presented with a CLI - it’s different than clicking buttons, and it’s not always superior, but it should absolutely not be the bogeyman that many treat it as. You can probably learn less than ten commands to just a minimal level of proficiency and get a LOT done.
No joke. Opening a command line from windows by itself is considered hacking by many. Even toggling dark mode in websites triggers that fear.
“OMG. Are you a hacker?”
“…I’m just using Powershell.”
Gotta brush up on the ol’ powershell
Talking about consistency, technically Windows still has UI elements from 3.1 era at Atleast couple of obscure places.
so who’s gonna build us a control panel widget. I can only code C
Well there’s already WinToys, which does a lot. It may be a new project for them to just add in a legacy Control Panel tab.
I’d be surprised if the windows control panel wasn’t written in C.
I’d be surprised if it is in C, it’s probably in C++. That’s been the language of Windows since pretty much forever.
It looks like it was written in plain html.
In favor of what? I still have to use control panel because some things are seemingly unreachable by the “settings” menus.
Yeah. This sounds a lot like some PM type thinks they’re gonna get rid of control panel, and they just don’t know what all is actually in there.
And not to mention the custom control panel applets hanging around out there from who-knows-what vendors.
I don’t think that the PM is wrong. They absolutely can get rid of the control panel. It’s the user who will suffer ✌
And not to mention the custom control panel applets hanging around out there from who-knows-what vendors.
AMD FirePro and Catalyst users are going to probably stay on an older version of the OS, considering most of those users are going to be educational institutions, engineering workshops, makerspaces/hackerspaces etc.
Can’t think of any other vendor products that integrated quite as much into the legacy control panel area
I’m thinking of highly niche industrial and embedded products who are likely to be left behind.
A major traditional selling point for Windows has always been the backwards compatibility.
I wonder if there would be a way to “embed” those old panel applets into the new settings somehow.
I bet they at most remove control.exe or make it open the Settings app, but still allow launching old vendor .cpl items just like they already can be opened in Control Panel.
This is already implemented on a lot of the settings pages on 11.
Edit: just wanted to add I don’t think well. I use it at work.
Windows is king at being inconsistent 🔥
If only they had trained advanced users to use the CLI that would never change unlike the GUI
That’s M$ intention, to hide some settings from users and lose control of Windows.
Right, I forgot, MS doesn’t want you to have control what programs are doing or how your computer works. Corporate way or…linux.
I may be technologically challenged but Microsoft has been steadily selling me on linux ever since windows 10.
Linux is just straight up easier to use than an unfucked windows.
See, that may be the case. Or it might not be. It’s a risk vz reward right now. I am not good with computers and have had my PC, laptop, phone and smart watch, inexplicably break, get stuck on boot and had to have them repaired. I just know my mistakes are easier to screw up my computer and data on linux. So the worse MS gets, the more I am willing to risk it.
It’s probably all in the registry somewhere.
I wonder if you’re talking about the windows 10 or windows 11 version of the settings app?
Yes. I have win 10 and 11 devices. They both lack certain options and I’ve had to go around them, like using control panel. In this case only the win 11 device is at risk of getting much worse.
What a fucking piece of shit company. What’s the eta to fully learn Linux, and learn how to set up a dual boot os where Linus is daily driver but a local windows account is on its own drive for emergencies and gaming.
I have friends who work in IT and would probably slam their head against the wall if they had to deal with Control Panel being removed.
Are Microsoft deliberately trying to make the fabled Year of the Linux Desktop finally become a reality? Because I feel like we’re two or three more dumbfuck business moves away from this…
I have a PC at home that works perfectly fine. Browses the internet, emulates GameCube and Dreamcast, runs any app I need.
It’s not eligible for Windows 11. In about a month MS will just stop supporting my PC, and it will not have the option to be a Windows PC despite still having plenty of service time to offer.
Microsoft is basically forcing that PC to run Linux instead.
Windows 10 is being supported until next October, you’ve got more than a month. That said, I’ve been on Linux for just over a month and I’m so much happier with it. I really like KDE Plasma as a desktop environment. I made the leap because I was unhappy with Windows, but at this point I genuinely prefer Linux.
Ah. Thank you!! I was planning to disconnect the computer from wifi next month until I got around to setting up Linux. Nice to know there is more time.
I used Mint like 15 years ago trying to set up retropie on a cheap netbook. It felt really smooth, but I couldn’t get something to work and just never had time to research a resolution.
I’m sure it’s more user friendly now or at least the tools are more successful on first install. Going to find out sooner or later. I really just use that old PC to store pictures and play retro games, so it shouldn’t be hard to convert with a little time for research.
If you’re coming from Windows I recommend Fedora KDE Spin. If has a similar look and feel and is very up to date while remaining stable.
Thank you for the recommendation!
KDE really is nice. It can be a little bit buggy when messing with themes and panels and stuff but overall its nice. I’ve got it looking like waybar and I’m really enjoying it.
Which distro are you on? Plasma has reached it’s 6.0 version I think now. I used it back in the day and KDE apps are really more powerful than their GNOME counterparts.
Bazzite, it’s based on immutable Fedora. But it made sense for my use case because it’s one of the more consistent at working out of the box with Nvidia graphics cards and I wanted the gaming stuff, but Plasma should be more or less the same everywhere. I’m not sure which version of Plasma it’s running but Bazzite is generally pretty up to date with everything but I can’t check right now.
Don’t sweat “what distro” so much. All the major distros offer the same desk tops. So pick a distro you like and just download the KDE Plasma spin of it and enjoy.
I’ve been using linux for about a decade. I only know how to maintain my system and google when troubles arise. I’m pretty comfortable with my setup and would love to see many make that jump as well. However, I have to concede that corporate environments add a whole another dimension to the problem.
slam their head against the wall
I already do that enough as it is with Windows 11…
Can confirm, want to change your domain or computer name? Windows 7/10: control panel , system , computer name tab. Windows 10 /11: control panel, system, windows settings, advanced system settings, old system control panel, computer name tab.
Why add a middle man??
Open Start or hit Win+R- type sysdm.cpl. Done. They kill off the easy to click icon in Control Panel, but they leave the stuff in still. I doubt they’ll remove them. Or at least hope not, lol. Settings is such a cluster to go through.
Next time I write my ver 5 of my admin program I’ll add that in!
That many steps? WindowsKey+Break > Change computer name.
If you’re okay with three steps, on Windows 10 and newer, you can right click the start menu and generally open system. Just about any version supports right clicking “My Computer” or “This PC” and selecting properties, as well.
win+X, then the letter for system. probably s or y but not sure. i use win+x, a all the time for an admin ps window
But that would require effort to learn to do something different. And a lot of users are firmly against that notion.
Just like the new shitty right click menu. There is no reason to reinvent the wheel just because.
And there is no reason not to either. You would still be looking at the cli in Unix with that attitude.
I don’t know about that one, It would be really hard to teleconference though the terminal.
Especially considering we still have (more or less) the same CLI for decades at this point.
Bourne was from 1977-1979, bash which was heavily inspired/designed to replace was from 1989. It is still the default shell in ubuntu.
I use powershell for this. I was just stating the click through steps.
I use to keep all my windows MGMT tools on a custom MMC screen. So organized.
This doesn’t say they’re removing it, just deprecating it. I thought it had been deprecated for ages
I can’t imagine that they won’t be removing it eventually though.
Why would they? They still have dialogues from Windows 95, if not before. Microsoft pretty much never removes anything, they just hide it and add new stuff on top because they’re terrified of breaking backward compatibility.
that’s fading though. it’s coming as they push towards the walled garden.
Sure, but they’ll still be available because Windows Server customers use them, and it’s easier to just leave it in for both than to remove it for the retail release. So they’ll probably hide it more, but I’m guessing it’ll still be accessible for power users.
That ODBC window has been there since about Win 3.1 I think. Watching those completely unresizeable forms pop up in the middle of my 1440p monitor is always amusing.
I can just see some guy coding that, thinking “why would it need to be bigger? It’s practically the full screen!”
I’m not sure if regedit has changed much either, certainly seems like it’s the same since using it in xp? Odbc windows are 100% 3.1 though.
Feel like task scheduler, event viewer and partitioning tools have been relatively static as well, but they’re not as old as the odbc window. Tbh I’m not surprised that administrative/dev tools haven’t had a ui change.
deleted by creator
I am curious where I’ll find the touch screen configuration utility when they do.
Because you touch y… wait no. That doesn’t work here.
Let me channel my inner Microsoft and think of the most asinine…
OK, yeah, you’ll have to touch and hold the right hand side of the screen for three seconds, then the left and the right for a further three, let go of the right and keep touching the left for three more, let go and then the settings will pop up. I call it “Son of sticky keys.”
There will be no other way to get to those settings.
Flight simmers the world round will revolt if that dialog isn’t easy to get to or converted to modern format.
Thank fuck I’m in the process of moving to Linux. I loathe the Settings app. Will be sad to not be able to say I know how to properly use Windows anymore, when I used to know it like the back of my hand. Not being able to give support to friends and family will feel really weird.
ROFL, you naive sweet child. Once you’re a computer expert, you’ll always be so. Friends/family will still harass you and think your lying if you try use an excuse.
Not being able to give support to friends and family will feel really weird.
I see it as being liberated. Besides, while it’ll suck to be unable to fix their problems, if it gets bad enough that they consider other operating systems, you’ll be right there to help them switch!
I’m in the process of getting a family member over to Linux (again. didn’t work that well last time), but still, I like to help friends and family with computers when I can and I’ve always taken pride in being the go-to guy who know how to fix the thing. Ah well.
This is never going to happen fully, because there is a ton of software and also device drivers that hook into the OG Control Panel system and install their own .cpl’s there, which are required for that hardware/software to work. The system to support those is going to have to remain in place, otherwise Microsoft is going to have a lot of very angry corporate customers and hardware vendors up their noses in short order.
In fact, this is most likely the exact reason the Control Panel still exists behind the scenes the way it does today in Win10 and Win11. They’ll probably go to ever-greater lengths to hide it from home users, but I’d doubt they can actually remove it completely at this point.
In fact, from TFA:
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.
I’m sure they could keep the backend and just update the look and UI frontend though, no?
Maybe, but they can’t change the look of all those third party .cpl applets.
And sure, anyone could theoretically do anything. But this is Microsoft we’re talking about. They’ll just put another layer of cruft on top of the five or six layers of cruft they’ve already got and then call it job done.
The whole point of the Settings “app” is to remove the user’s ability to do anything on their own computer. The old (and far more functional) UI of the Control Panel won’t get updated because Microsoft wants users to get scared when the unpretty UI appears.
That‘s like my bank saying „Hey, use our new website, the old one will be phased out in 6 werks“.
Me: „Ok, show me my bank statements“.
Bank: „That‘s only possible on the old site“.
Not a joke, sadly.
I’ve had a similar experience with my bank. There is no legacy site to fall back to anymore, sadly. I am still figuring out how to do things on the new site. Years after it was launched.
Can someone explain to me the difference from Control Panel to Settings? It seems like more of a name change and of course, the UI will be different, but won’t it effectively be a hub to control your personal settings just like control panel?
Currently the Settings app in windows doesn’t have the same level of features as the control panel does. It’s definitely got most features that normal users will need, but if you’re a power user or a system admin, you’ll quickly find yourself having to swap over to control panel to configure anything past the very basics for quite a few different parts of windows. This change will be fine if Microsoft achieve feature parity between settings and control panel, so that there’s no lost functionality when they get rid of control panel.
I think most people are a bit upset at the idea of the control panel disappearing because they don’t trust that Microsoft will end up reaching that feature parity, leaving people with less options to control their own devices effectively.
I don’t think feature parity is the only problem here. Power users need information density and quick reactivity, two things that the new settings – with their huge buttons and useless animations – dearly lack.
Great. So managing printers, network settings and quickly comparing settings from two places becomes a weird game of screenshots and guessing.
Remote support workers of the world collectively shake their fist in despair.
No way on this planet I will be able to explain the new UI to your average office worker.
It’s as if they intentionally were making their products unusable for ADHD and especially AuDHD people.
I wonder sometimes, maybe they are. Maybe there’s some policy coming from some macchiavellian cokehead in a suit, that people like us spoil their big, important social mechanisms and introduce a measure of chaos they don’t want, so we have to be suppressed.
I just don’t understand why Windows is such an ADHD torture today. Even XP wasn’t.
It really seems sometimes as if they were going out of their way to make it such, not only MS, but also Google, Apple and who not.
Its not good. Control panel is consistent and precise. Settings is not consistent lacks many settings and many are dumbed down
I know, I still have to touch Windows at work.
I too am limited by the technology of our time
I know, I still have to touch Windows at work.
Windows: Only when paid to touch it.
The first thing I did after getting my work laptop was to install Linux. I am so glad that my work allows it.
Definitely an issue. I can’t count the times I’ve slammed my head because the stupid settings screen “conveniently” switches from the previous item to another while I still expected it to open a new window just like the command panel.
Control panel largely accrued content - it is generally navigated via left and right click which works great and is stable. Things don’t vanish.
Settings, on the other hand, is left click only navigation mostly. It also changed constantly (usually for the worst) - tutorials written 2 years ago are no longer valid because access to that setting was removed. This makes using settings to fix things a real nightmare.
But luckily each item has a lot of “maybe you were looking for X or Y” at the bottom since you can’t find anything in there. So just click anywhere, and scroll to the bottom and you’ll find what you want in 2 or 3 screens.
Unless it’s been removed. Then you just ask the resident IA.
Windows is so easy!
I run SuSE btw.
Windows 8 came out in 2012. I switched to Linux shortly after.
If you’ve been suffering through this as a home user you have nobody but yourself to blame.
You’re not so busy you can’t learn a new OS in 12 years!
Plebs.
