Configuring the Control Panel

The only problem with the Windows 7 Control Panel is that, in an attempt to make it easier for casual users to figure out how to do what they want to do, Microsoft effectively buried most of the configuration utilities several layers beneath the surface. In short, you have to make too many clicks to get to each configuration utility.

There's a way around this problem, however-which happens to be our first customization tip in these tutorials. In Windows 7, you can accept the default Control Panel display (all those easy-to-understand links) or you can reconfigure the appearance of the Control Panel to display the configuration utilities themselves.

The default display is called the Category view, but there are two other views you can enable. Pull down the View By list at the top right corner of the Control Panel and you see options for Large Icons and Small Icons. Both of these views list all the individual configuration utilities in the Control Panel window. The two views are identical save for the size of the icons; the Large Icons view uses larger icons than does the Small Icons view.

In previous versions of Windows, the Control Panel Large Icons view was known as the Classic view.

With either of the Icons views, you can go directly to the configuration utility you want. Just click an icon and you open the appropriate window or dialog box, no additional click-throughs required. It's a whole lot quicker than using the default Category view-assuming you know what utility is used for which type of configuration.