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hie....
There is an invalid or non-functioning icon existing in my control panel. Whenever I open control panel, I always see it....which sometimes becomes irritating. However, I want to remove this invalid icon from my control panel. How can i do the same ? can somebody provide me the information or ideas regarding this....
thanks
Removing the invalid icon from Control Panel
Determining the corresponding .CPL file name
To determine the corresponding .CPL file for an invalid or non-functioning Control Panel item, use these steps:
- Click Start, Control Panel
- Right-click the invalid icon and choose Create Shortcut
- Click Yes when you see the following dialog:
- Do you want the shortcut to be placed on the desktop instead?
- In the Desktop, right-click the newly created shortcut and choose Properties
- Click the Change Icon button. You'll then see the actual CPL file name in the resulting dialog.
- Using the CPL file name, you should be able to trace the respective application. If that application has already been uninstalled, then you may simply delete the .CPL file as you no longer require that.
If the Change Icon button does not show the file name, use the following method:
Click Start, Run and type notepad.exe
From the File menu in Notepad, choose Open...
In the Files of type: drop-down, select All Files
Select the shortcut that was created earlier, and click Open.
Determine the .cpl file name using the Find option in Notepad.
Note - If there are no reference to a .cpl, then the invalid icon is most likely a namespace entry implemented in the registry. In that case, use the following method to manage Control Panel namespace items.
Download ShellObjectEditor and run the program.
Switch to Expert Mode to view all the Namespace objects.
Spot the offending entry (by Location) that you want to remove.
Select the corresponding entry and then Delete or Hide it.
The object would be present under one of the following registry keys:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Software \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Explorer \ ControlPanel \ NameSpace
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ Software \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Explorer \ ControlPanel \ NameSpace
Using Explorer go to C:\Windows\System32. Arrange the View by Type and look for files with cpl as the extension. You may have to display full filename in Folder Options to see them. Create a folder, say, TempCPL in Documents. Move the unwanted cpl files to the new folder and open Control Panel to check your removals.
If you wish to simply hide an icon from being displayed in the Control Panel you can delete or move the icon, you can do it by editing the control.ini file.