Using Windows feels like a constant negotiation with a hostile and unstable terrorist whom I paid for the privilege, so I was ready to get up in arms about it formally “deprecating” the Control Panel in favor of the newer Settings menu. But then, as reported by Ars Technica, Microsoft softened its words, if not the meaning behind them, and more to the point, I don’t think the big M is really doing anything wrong—this time.
A Windows support page was recently updated with the language “The Control Panel is in the process of being deprecated in favor of the Settings app, which offers a more modern and streamlined experience.” After widespread discussion and reporting on the move, including PC World’s editorial, “Windows will have to pry Control Panel from my cold dead hands” (much respect), Microsoft amended the language to read “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.”
Sounds a bit gentler, but that still pretty much means the same thing, right? “Control Panel, you’re off the team, Settings is getting called up from the Minor Leagues.” The age of Control Panel is over, now is the hour of wolves. And I’m sure the phrase “modern and streamlined experience” feels bitterly condescending to the Control Panel likers out there. I know that in my experience, Windows’ overall “modern and streamlined experience” feels like I’m being jerked around, slapped in the face, pushed down in the mud, and made to say “thank you” for it.
But I honestly can’t remember the last time I used the Control Panel. I usually do get to my relevant destination via the Settings (ugh) “app,” and failing that I’ll make things work with the OS’ search function, even though it’s always trying to open up Bing in an Edge browser window for some godforsaken reason—has anyone ever “Binged” a result in Windows’ OS search intentionally, even once?
If we’re being honest, the Control Panel has been in the process of being deprecated for Settings’ streamlined and modern whatever for some time now, and I don’t hate it—I could never find shit in the Control Panel! There was never a rhyme or reason to its layout—alphabetical, thematic, what have you—you just had to squint and go down the columns until you found what you were looking for, or otherwise submit to a dumbed down categorical view that still felt randomized somehow. I owe the Control Panel nothing. It can die for all I care.
I just never want to let a grievance I don’t actually buy into get in the way of all the real things I can’t stand about Windows, like it’s crappy HDR support, how every other Windows update tries to subscribe me to OneDrive and Office 365, how “update and shut down” actually restarts your PC, how if you have a second monitor plugged in, but turned off, Windows still presents an invisible, phantom desktop you can lose your cursor in, how Windows always resets my second monitor’s wallpaper on restart, how the search tool doesn’t work and sends you to Bing, or how the OS has this awful second ecosystem of “apps” for some reason, as if “programs” were just too nerdy and unsexy. And Instead of fixing all of this they’re trotting out new AI surveillance tools then saying “sorry, sorry” when everybody gets mad
Yeah, I have some grievances. Festivus came early this year. I should really become a Linux Guy, like all men of a certain age.