trick-folder-intro

Have you ever wanted to make a change to your Windows 7 computer but spent a long time looking through all of the computer settings and control panel only to give up? Yeah, me too. The good news is, there is a really cool and simple way to get all of those Control Panel settings in one easy to use folder.

With this simple trick, you can easily have fast access to all of the settings in your Control Panel in a much easier to use interface. This bit of code only works on Windows 7 computers.

Creating the shortcut

To create this shortcut, you will need to make a new folder. There is no trick to this part, you simply right-click on an open spot on your desktop and highlight New then select Folder.

trick-folder-right-click

When you have a new folder created on your desktop, you can right-click on the Folder and choose Rename. Alternatively, you highlight the folder and press F2 to rename the folder.

trick-folder-new-folder

You will want to rename the folder this. The TechNorms part can be changed to anything you would like. You can call it Settings Shortcut or CP shortcut or geek folder, anything you’d like.u

Vikitech.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}

trick-folder-rename

When you rename the folder, you will see the icon change.

trick-folder-shortcut

Using the new folder

When you click on and open this new folder, you will see all of the settings from the Control Panel in a very easy to use format. I collapsed some of the tabs so you can see what a few of the options are and how they are laid out.

trick-folder-list

As you can see, you will have one long scrolling alphabetical list like you should get in the Control Panel but do not. All of the tabs are there to see, not hidden in very generic folders like in the Control Panel. When you want to find something in this folder, you can use the search in the top right corner.

trick-folder-search

This solution will only work on Windows 7 computers. If you have another version of the Windows OS, you might not get the desired results if you try this method. If you do not want this shortcut on your desktop, you can create it or move it where ever you would like. Trying to access it from multiple computers via Dropbox might not be the smartest thing either.

Final words

Think of this like a smart folder like a Mac would have, just a little more specific. Having a folder like this makes changing your settings a little easier. While this is a bit of code you might not know on your own, copying and pasting is well within most computer users list of skills.

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