Customize Your Control Panel in Vista

[O'Brian]

The Windows Vista's Control Panel is chock full of specialized tools that are used to maintain, adjust, and tweak the way that Vista behaves. The default view of the Control Panel is called Control Panel Home and is basically arranged in a Category View. Unfortunately, these categories don't have the most intuitive names and many tools are buried beneath several layers making them not only difficult to find, but time consuming to access. But heres a tip you can customize the control panel from your style.Here’s how.

1. Open an Explorer window ( Start Orb > Computer) Under favorite links choose Documents, Right click in the Documents area and choose New > Folder. Name it what ever you want. I choose Kevins Control Panel.
   
   
2. Right click your new folder and choose Properties. Click the Customize tab > Change Icon. Pick the Icon of your choice them click Ok twice.
   
   
3. Open your new folder. (Leave this window open.)
   
   
4. Click the Start Orb then choose Control Panel..
   
   
5. In the left hand pane click Classic View so you can see all of the items that are available to choose from.
   
   
6. Now left click items in the Control Panel you want and drag them to your new folder.
   
   
7. When you’re finished drag your new folder to the start Orb, when the Menu appears drop the folder on the top area of the Menu.
   
   
8. Now when you click the Start Orb you’re new Control Panel will be at the top of your Start Menu.

And all you’re favorite Control Panel items will be in one easy to find place.

[Larry ward]

1. Open your Control Panel and use the link on the left side to switch to Classic View - so that all of the items in your Control Panel are displayed.
   
   
2. Somewhere on your hard drive, it doesn’t really matter where, create a folder called Custom Control Panel (or whatever you’d like your customized control panel to be called).
   
   
3. Now open your “Custom Control Panel” folder and drag the items you frequently use from your actual Control Panel into it. This will create a shortcut to each item.
   
   
4. Once you’ve added all of the items you want to include in your custom Control Panel, right-click on its folder and select Properties.
   
   
5. Select the Customize tab and then click the Change Icon… button.
   
   
6. Choose an icon to use for your new Control Panel, and click OK. Click OK again to exit the Properties window. This should take you back to your Custom Control Panel folder.
   
   
7. Now drag that folder on to the Start button (orb) until the menu appears. Drop the folder on the top part of your Start window. Now you have quick access to your customized Control Panel.
   
   
8. You can of course access your actual Control Panel the same way as always, should the need arise.

[Flux]

Great tips. Thanks. Sometimes it is often the simplets of tasks that make a big difference in our day to day lives. This is exactly one of those!