Microsoft Will Axe Control Panel From Windows 10 (gizmodo.com) 208
Microsoft seems to be getting a kick out seeing users struggle to find Windows 10 features these days. After moving the Fresh Start feature in the latest version, 2004, and reducing the number of days Windows 10 Pro, Enterprise, and Education users can manually delay updates, the company is now experimenting with moving key Control Panel features, including System information, to Settings, Windows Latest blog spotted. From a report: It's a change that some long-time Windows users might not take to easily. If you're like me and have been using the Control Panel for decades, getting accustomed to this feature will be as arduous as unlearning a bad habit. To be fair, it's a bit redundant to have information on your system's specs located in three different places, not to mention all three don't show the exact same information. Currently, Windows 10 users can access hardware information about their PC in several places, but the main ways are: Control Panel > System and Security > System, and Settings > System > About, or by typing 'system information' into the search bar.
System and About show nearly the same info, what processor you have and how much RAM you have installed, for instance, except About will show you what version of Windows you have. System Information shows more detailed information about your PC, including your motherboard, GPU, and other hardware. Microsoft is trying to centralize this information, and moving forward, it seems likely that Control Panel will be killed off entirely.
System and About show nearly the same info, what processor you have and how much RAM you have installed, for instance, except About will show you what version of Windows you have. System Information shows more detailed information about your PC, including your motherboard, GPU, and other hardware. Microsoft is trying to centralize this information, and moving forward, it seems likely that Control Panel will be killed off entirely.
What about java, drives, etc with there own cpl's? (Score:3)
What about java, drives, etc with there own cpl files?
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C'mon, Clippy is so 90's. They introduce Slate, he looks like a smart phone - he can point you to the Microsoft page that invites you to update your old software.
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Re: What about java, drives, etc with there own cp (Score:4)
Re: What about java, drives, etc with there own c (Score:3)
Doesn't help much. A Windows PC had WinSCP installed : typing scp in the start menu yielded nothing.
Now, the "Win" part is most useless when you are looking to scp something, but it is most important to search.
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If you switch to Linux, you will have the option of using a proper command line.
Go on: try it - you know you want to return to the 1970s in your wildest dreams!
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I used to type out my commands to run my programs, when I was using DOS. Why are we moving backwards?
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Does anything really need its own CPL file? The fact that you brought up Java just proves that there's only a tiny handful of examples, and they've had plenty of time to come up with better settings utilities.
Still, a CPL file is just a specially named and formatted DLL. You can still create a Start Menu entry for it using rundll32.exe I think.
Isn't the most up-to-date (Score:3, Informative)
version of Windows you can own, still Windows 7?
Re:Isn't the most up-to-date (Score:5, Informative)
Re: Isn't the most up-to-date (Score:5, Informative)
True, but distinction should probably be made that we didn't own windows 2k, it was also licensed. It just didn't have realtime enforcement.
I guess to say the online activation feature made it easier to detect non-compliance. You can still buy retail licenses today which can tranfer from computer to computer, just only one computer at a time. This was also what we signed up for with 2k, except in mass licensing situations, they just couldn't enforce it.
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version of Windows you can own, still Windows 7?
I don't even know what you mean by this. It's only up to date inasmuch as you are paying for enterprise extended support. If you mean you can't "own" Windows 10... can you truly own any closed source software?
Re: Isn't the most up-to-date (Score:2)
I agree with this, but I wouldn't call that ownsrship of the software. More like the right to manage the machine the say you like, which you do own.
I agree modern versions of windows do make it feel like you dont really own your own machine.
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With this change, it's time for more Windows users to consider coming over to the dark side.
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You don't own Windows 7 any more than Windows 10. It's licensed to a piece of hardware you own entirely at the whim of the manufacturer to authenticate.
The last version of windows you can own is XP.
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Build your own PCs and now you're the OEM. :-)
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Responses seem to be covering a wide range of the philosophical spans you can choose from when discussing "own".
Me, I say we should've gone with the old "Do you control the computer or does it lock you out of exercising your will" aka does it control you
Users never own proprietary software. (Score:3)
There is no "version of Windows you can own". Windows is proprietary software and Microsoft can (if/when they choose) make copies of Windows behave in ways we've already seen (forced "upgrades" switching to Windows 10, ignoring a user's privacy setting even at its most ostensibly privacy-preserving value and chatting on a network anyhow, and more) and ways we can't predict precisely because that is the nature of proprietary software (non-free software, user-subjugating software). Technically speaking, there
Maybe in 2050 (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course Microsoft wants to kill Control Panel and move everything to Settings. They haven't hidden this goal since Windows 8 was released nearly a decade ago.
But they built the Settings menu in such a convoluted and impossible to develop way that it's apparently nigh on impossible to efficiently add new settings.
Porting over control panel settings will take decades at the current pace, which is to say it's never going to happen. By the time Microsoft finishes migrating existing control panel settings over to Settings, they'll have realized what a terrible idea it was to build the settings Window outside of the normal XAML/Windows UI build process and will start over with a new, saner, system.
Re:Maybe in 2050 (Score:5, Insightful)
The "Settings" functionality is so lobotomized and unusable that it's impossible to do anything really advanced there, especially when it comes to network configuration.
Re:Maybe in 2050 (Score:5, Insightful)
As someone who has come not to mind Windows 10 so much over time that part is the most mind boggling. The most common function, just changing your IP address has to be done with such a maze of commands. I cannot fathom how many phone tech support hours have been wasted with talking through that one simple change.
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the old: Control panel > network and sharing center > change adapter settings
the new: Settings > network & internet > change adapter options
both launch ncpa.cpl
the new system is just a facade for all the same old options
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To me, this is a case of a classic problem. Programmers almost always think that they can do better than the previous team because they "know better" than the old one. The reality is that the new team probably doesn't and that rewriting will result in a worse program. Many of the little details and problem fixes that were worked out over years and years are forgotten (it isn't the same programmers doing the work) and the new program just repeats many old problems and adds new ones of its own.
Joel Spolsky sa
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You're supposed to be so dumb that DHCP settings are good enough or so smart you can decipher the developer docs and write your own binary interface to change the settings.
There is no inbetween. I don't really get this aspect of IT anymore, this notion that you're gluing your own shit together from a half-dozen libraries, xml files and JSON queries or the costly widget you bought won't work.
I just spent a week doing training and it baffled me how much time was spent on this vendor's products shitty JSON qu
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You're supposed to be so dumb that DHCP settings are good enough or so smart you can decipher the developer docs and write your own binary interface to change the settings.
That is why my Windows machines get their IPs from my DHCP server, which runs a real OS, not a convoluted toy.
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The most common function, just changing your IP address has to be done with such a maze of commands. I cannot fathom how many phone tech support hours have been wasted with talking through that one simple change.
Microsoft fixed this a little while ago!
Settings -> Network -> click on "Properties" for the network connection -> click on "Edit" under the IP settings section
This is objectively simpler than the old way:
Control Panel -> Network and Internet -> Adapter settings -> right-click on device, choose "Properties" -> click on "Internet Protocol Version 4" then click "Properties"
The new UI also lets you copy/paste IP addresses. The old one, you had to always type each octet out manually.
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Re: Maybe in 2050 (Score:2)
I wouldnâ(TM)t even call it prettier personally. The main splash page? Sure. But past that the old interface even looked better.
Re:Maybe in 2050 (Score:5, Funny)
Of course Microsoft wants to kill Control Panel and move everything to Settings.
Surely you mean "move 30% of everything to Settings".
No win situation (no pun intended) (Score:5, Insightful)
Microsoft is in a no win situation, here.
"Oh my god, your OS is so crufty, you have stuff around that is decades old and desperately needs to be refactored!"
(Microsoft refactors something decades old)
"Oh my god, you broke my workflow, I've been doing it this way for decades! This is the worst thing ever, why do you keep changing things??"
Re:No win situation (no pun intended) (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem isn't just that they break the workflow, the problem is that they replace those decades-old things with half-finished versions that don't have the functionality of the old one. So after spending 5 minutes and not finding the setting you need, you have to go back to the "decades old crufty" control panel anyway.
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I don't disagree with you--settings in Windows has been a mess since Win8. That said, things have absolutely been improving, and as the "new" (can you really call something almost 10 years in the making "new?") tools are finally production ready, deprecating the old tools makes sense.
Re:No win situation (no pun intended) (Score:5, Insightful)
You call win 10 UI an "improvement"?! Diseased crap trying to make my desktop like a tablet, and plenty of things aren't discoverable nor intuitive. It's a failure of a UI from the kind of pinheads that made "the ribbon"
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Re:No win situation (no pun intended) (Score:5, Insightful)
It's great having single-pixel window borders that are so easy to grab to resize on modern 4K and 8K screens.
It's awesome having the window title bars the same background color as the content area background so you won't know where you can click to drag the window around.
And I just love how Office windows fill their title bars with extra controls so you can't even find a place to drag the window around.
Yeah, you're totally right: Windows 10 is a tribute to modern UI and UX design truly making my daily desktop use so easy, intuitive and satisfying.
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So after spending 5 minutes and not finding the setting you need
Honestly, these days it seems if you spent one extra minute you'd find the said settings and simlpy remember it for the future. The Settings panel when it rolled out was a disaster, but it is now almost feature complete. I looked through this thread and found a few examples, one guy saying he couldn't manage his printers (literally every option and dialogue possible from the Devices and Printers section of the control panel is available in the new one). The next guy said something wasn't available from Netw
Re: No win situation (no pun intended) (Score:2)
Re:No win situation (no pun intended) (Score:5, Insightful)
I can point to a dozen other little things which keep getting moved around in the Settings app. Not only does this confound efforts to learn where settings are located, it renders Google searches ineffective. You'll search for a problem, find posts saying to change a setting located here, navigate there, and the setting isn't there anymore. The people in charge of the Settings app don't seem to understand that consistency is important. Control Panel was nice in that stuff almost never moved around, all the way back from Windows 3.1.
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I agree completely. What many programmers (and product managers) fail to realize is that changing things is far more irritating to users than it is to them. Each time something changes, it forces re-learning. Even if by some metrics things are "better" (e.g. UX studies show that new users can do an operation faster), the net frustration added to using computers goes up.
So, when you need to change a user-interface, a lot of thought should go into how old users will react. It really has to be a lot better in
Re:No win situation (no pun intended) (Score:5, Funny)
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It can be a contradiction, but it inherently isn't.
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No, what Microsoft is deliberately breaking is one central location to accomplish something. With few exceptions, everything one needed to change is located in Control Panel.
Settings now takes that centralized approach and spreads those easy-to-find functions to the four winds. Now one literally has to search to find what they want whereas before they could go to that one location.
Someone recently remarked in another story the death of Control Panel was coming due to Microsoft's fiddling. They were spot o
Finally it's becoming more like ^nix (Score:3)
used to be virtually everything in windows was accessible via a single click or two at most. now it's like 10 minutes just to figure out where windows updates is now so that all the ^nix fans can feel superior thinking they are smarter for doing useless work
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I'm not sure what you think you're referring to there. Windows has had the Registry for something like 20 years now, which is where many of its deepest, darkest secret settingss are buried.
There's nothing currently in Linux even remotely approaching that level of absurdity... despite Poettering's best efforts.
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I mean there's some pretty convoluted stuff when it comes to dconf and dbus...
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used to be virtually everything in windows was accessible via a single click
That is a not a good thing. A flat menu with every option is a disaster of a HMI design.
Re: Finally it's becoming more like ^nix (Score:2)
Actually, they're system calls not calls to a CLI tool generally but otherwise true; making a GUI as fully functional as a CLI is super hard. I think F5 did well with their BigIP GUI. Maybe 1 or 2 other network gear vendors (none start with C), but otherwise no, GUIs suck for system work.
Who needs a control panel? (Score:2)
With Win 10, you hit the windows key, then type "Blue" and the bluetooth control panel and settings items both appear in the list.
So I never go to the control panel first anyway.
And then, why are there two? For Power, there's three or four different panels to manage it -- make it simpler.
Re:Who needs a control panel? (Score:5, Insightful)
More like you type the letters BLU and you accidentally type the E and Bluetooth disappears from the results. Backspace to BLU and it appears...
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Re: Who needs a control panel? (Score:2)
What if I don't want to play a game of Family Feud?
What if I don't know the name?
What if I don't even know what's available that might make my life so much easier?
That is why we invented menus. "Because the
user does not know what he wants, until he knows what he can get."
You kids seem to cargo cult the command line paradigm. I love my command line, but without directory listings and tab completion, which essentially make it a menu system too, it would be useless.
The Start menu and e.g. macOS's spotlight are
Every day I think Windows 10 really is (Score:2)
Could be the straw that brakes the camel's back (Score:5, Insightful)
The control panel is the best place to deal with printers. The settings printer ...thing... is totally shit and useless for actually doing anything meaningful with a printer. In most IT environments, this is critical, as printers are a huge pain in the ass as it is.
Being that most things these days are simply a goddamned web environment, there's really no need for windows. I can setup Linux for free and do everything that I need to do. Fuck Windows. Fuck Microsoft.
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Huh? The way Microsoft slowly and poorly replaced Control Panel functionality with Settings always made me think that they were trying to copy the jumbled, half-functional settings UIs in every Linux I have ever used.
Or did the YOLOTD finally arrive and I missed it?
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Yes you probably did miss it. For me and many other people the year of the Linux desktop was 20 years ago. Been happily using it as the primary driver on my desktop for over 2 decades now.
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I can setup Linux for free and do everything that I need to do. Fuck Windows. Fuck Microsoft.
Tell that to all the people (hundreds of millions alone) playing PC Minecraft.
The obtuse only think their use-cases are the only ones. If the market existed as you wanted, it would exist. It doesnt.
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Those folks playing Minecraft at work, probably don't work there very long. My friend, you've taken what I said out of meaning. I'm talking about a work environment.
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The settings printer ...thing... is totally shit and useless for actually doing anything meaningful with a printer.
It literally present the same ALL of the same screens as are available from the Control Panel when adding or managing printers and even provides a direct link for you to access Devices and Printers in the control panel.
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It literally present the same ALL of the same screens as are available from the Control Panel when adding or managing printers and even provides a direct link for you to access Devices and Printers in the control panel.
Unless there's been some update to it, and there very well could be - I haven't used that crappy ...interface(?)... in years - it didn't ever provide a way to access the properties of a printer. What you say makes me want to check now though, as I'm going to HAVE to learn how to do my fucking job all over again, again. So I hope you're correct.
Windows is losing what made it great (Score:5, Informative)
Windows is losing what made it great. Yes it has been happening for decades but each one of these things is making it harder for people to know what is going on. You used to be able to control what windows did from the GUI, now they are "stripping down" the GUI and replacing the tools that people use for full control and not replacing them. I remember in Windows XP and Windows 7 I spent very little time in the registry. I spend more time in the Windows 10 registry to set things they way I want them than I have in any other system. What used to be a simple click, is now a regedit add or modify.
Windows - you have gone from being on every machine I own, to now being relegated to VM status, on one instance. Sorry - if I cannot get to the things I need easily, and have to resort to 20 minutes of google-fu every update to get things back - you are fucking too many things up. Sorry that I say this as a former MSFT employee ... auf weidersehen.
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People who really want full control are going to use GPO and Powershell anyway. The rest just needs to be maintainable and consistent.
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Windows is losing what made it great.
Hiding functions buried in menus and complicated settings causing an entire service industry built around teaching plebs how to use it?
Yes it has been happening for decades but each one of these things is making it harder for people to know what is going on.
False. Each one of these settings is making it harder for people who knew the old way to know what is going on. Like it or not Windows has for the best part of 20 years been going through a process of stupification and dumbing down mostly in aid of helping clueless non-IT people be able to do basic stuff more easily. Put grandma infront of a Windows XP machine and ask her to
Migrate to Powershell? (Score:2)
I'm clearly no Windows expert anymore, but are any of the settings not available from the shell? Sounds easier to me, than navigating through stupid dialog trees. Especially with the automatability. People could even have their own better control panel.
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This migration was too slow and painful (Score:2)
We've known this was coming since the launch of Windows10 (or did it start in 8?), but to be honest it's been some time since I've had to use the Control Panel to change anything. Most simple options (including the System Information page) can already be found in the new Settings pages and Admin Tools cover the rest, though often the "advanced" or "more options" links still bring up the old Control Panel style windows.
Even though I preferred the visual style of the old system I'll be glad not to have to dea
Color me surprised (Score:2)
No shit. Settings has always been inferior. If you made me switch my car to one that was missing a steering wheel, I would not take to it easily either. Granted, if you are on slashdot you probably right-click the Windows icon, search for what you want, or use the Windows key + X shortcut. But still, not everyone does that. And not everything you need is always obviously named. Finally, none of the alternatives are excuses for the b
Oh, Microsoft... (Score:4)
Because having all of the computer's settings in one, easy to access, centralized location was apparently a bad idea?
Dear Automobile owner... (Score:3)
To enhance your driving experience, we have removed your steering wheel from the dashboard and relocated it to the trunk.
Settings are important! (Score:2)
Leave Control Panel, get rid of 'settings' (Score:2)
Settings looks like the control panel from Microsoft Bob.
The problem is not the change (Score:4, Insightful)
The "new generation" is switching control panels that are old but have dozens of commands for "modern" useless versions that don't even have 10% of the functionality of the original panel.
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It's the War on Mice. Everything is being made finger/tablet-oriented even though most "productivity" applications are mice-centric for a good reason: micing is more efficient than fingering. We mouse at work, not finger. MS lost the consumer-OS war, but keeps on fighting like a soldier on a deserted island who never got the news that the war is over. (Or is it? Am I missing something?)
If you mess with my mice I'll give you the finger.
Dear microsoft... (Score:2)
Please stop moving my cheese.
Thanks, from a well-trained mouse.
Not functionally equivalent (Score:5, Insightful)
I try to use Settings for most things, but it really only exposes a small subset of configurations, and seems to be more geared at home users for ease-of-use. That's great if all you need to do is add a BT device or something equally mundane, but any more advanced tasks (especially on the networking side) are not accounted for in Settings at all. If they want to kill off the legacy Control Panel, fine, but I don't exactly see the majority of the Control Panel tunables being migrated to Settings, as this would detract from the whole ease-of-use angle they're trying to push. I guess their "solution" will be obscure powershell commands and going back to manual registry fiddling, which is definitely a step back for anyone that actually needs to administer these systems in a corporate environment.
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but any more advanced tasks (especially on the networking side) are not accounted for in Settings at all.
Have you looked to the right? There's literally a link directly to the Network and Sharing Center from within Settings, Adapter Settings has a faster more direct link, much faster access to sharing options, direct access to the firewall, and literally exposes several settings such as designating a connection to be metered which are simply not available in the Control Panel. Networking is one of the few completely feature complete areas of the Settings panel which really does not make you access the Control
Why Though? (Score:2)
The thing I do not understand about this is what incentive does MS to foist this crap on people?
Wouldn't it be better if they just said "okay, we're done with windows 10" and shift the army of coders they have on deckchair shuffling to something more useful? Changing things for what can only be described as for the sake of change is pointless, pisses off their users, and is a complete waste of manpower.
Also the forced updates, why? Why does MS care if i'm using an older version without all this new fangled
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mmm, i'll stow the 2 minute hate then and give it an honest go.
I just assumed that it would be like removing something simple, quick, and effective like notepad -- and 'upgrading' it to something like word. (no real animosity towards word, but sometimes you don't want to deal with all the baggage)
Duh? (Score:2)
Settings has always been the replacement for Control Panel, but recreating it was such a huge task they have been doing it piece by piece.
Since it's UWP they can share code between other platforms such as Hololens, where Settings has the same look and feel and many shared options. Control Panel won't run there.
They could use it on Xbox too but I don't have one so I can't say if they're doing that or not.
I think it's a bit unfair to be surprised this is happening or to claim it will take forever to get used
Did msmash just wake from a coma? (Score:4, Interesting)
Microsoft has been migrating control panel functions to the Settings menu for 8 years now. They literally stated stated 8 years ago they will kill the Control Panel.
Slashdot, News for people who really live under rocks.
It's a bit like NT 4 (Score:4, Interesting)
That was put there to begin with because of the user experience of NT 4.0. It was terrible and a royal pain in the arse to find anything. It's like getting rid of the perfectly functional start menu or regular menu in office. They are getting rid of things that work and replacing them with things that don't work.
I'm not sure I recall any courses on pissing off your customers in college. I'm quite certain that pretty much all engineering courses teach you not to make things complicated - ever. I am most certain of all though that doing things that make your customers angry and refusing to listen to them falls squarely under hubris. It's the kind of thinking that only tends to happen at a monopoly.
Companies that aren't monopolies and that have effective competition don't do things that deliberately piss off their customers.
Just pick 1, I don't care which one. (Score:3)
Its such a mess right now, if I could get a single place to access all the settings it would be a win.
Sadly what we'll get is just some superficial subset of the settings to distract home users and the rest of us will be stuck in regedit.
Microsoft's dilemma (Score:3)
The problem Microsoft has now is that they are convinced that the future is mobile, and that mobile means touchscreens, and that thou shalt not have two OS, one for desktop and one for touchscreens. With that, they are forever trying to shoehorn a keyboard-and-mouse OS into a touchscreen paradigm. So, when they see something in Android that is done via Settings, they warm up and want to do that too, doesn't matter what breaks down in the desktops that are factually their only clients nowadays. So it's a rather schizoid situation, and you get a nasty OS. It won't end till Microsoft starts living in the reality, where Windows cannot be a decent touchscreen OS because it wasn't designed for it.
Sounds very familiar (Score:3)
It's almost as if I predicted this [slashdot.org] four days ago.
Now we'll be forced to search for something which previously was located in one convenient location. Instead of being able to accomplish something, we'll spend our time wandering aimlessly about because what was once a few clicks away will now be an expedition.
It will be like going to a grocery store and wandering the aisles for a dozen eggs because they're no longer located in the dairy section. Who knows, maybe today eggs are in the vegetable area whereas tomorrow they'll be with the cheeses.
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This is what I hate about the search paradigm. Sometimes you don't know what you're looking for and just want to see all your options, or see what's new or changed from the previous version. It's not like there's formal documentation for any of these features.
But, hey... "choice paralysis" and all that. Gotta keep the training wheels on forever!
About time, now 8 years late (Score:2)
So this is actually a good thing. It's incredible how MS shipped Windows 8 with a new Settings app, but somehow still retaining the Control Panel as well. Various settings were spread between two separate apps, and as you can imagine this was not specially user friendly. Apple wouldn't have done such stupid thing. Moreover, this situation continued into Windows 10 release and until now. Glad to see it took Microsoft only 8 years to fix this problem.
Shit UI -- missing Apply and Cancel buttons (Score:3)
One of the biggest changes -- for the worst -- is that you can no longer "undo" a new setting.
For example, in Win10 the Windows+i keys brings up Settings; navigate to Systems, Power & sleep. When you make a change in the drop-down menu for When plugged in, turn off after -- it is permanent. There is NO option to undo. WTF!?
The old Control Panel had "Apply" and "Cancel" buttons. This means that you can actually a) test out a setting, and b) cancel it if you didn't like it.
Stop turning a desktop UI into a dumb tablet.
--
Microsoft Windows, noun: A 64-bit compilation of 32 bit extensions and a graphical shell for a 16 bit patch to an 8 bit operating system originally coded for a 4 bit microprocessor written by a 2 bit company that can't stand 1 bit of competition with 0 bit of understanding good UI.
Desktop as a service coming to YOU! (Score:2)
Microsoft have been sabotaging their own operating system, turning it into a 'service' (windows 10) - and I'd have to question their motivation.
The suspicious side of me thinks that there are probably some consumer protections when it comes to operating systems that don't apply to services.
I think Microsoft just looked at Facebook's egregious data collection and wanted to get in on the gig.
DAAS is an Orwellian wet dream, and it doesn't take a Rocket Surgeon to see that 'free computing' as in freedom is on t
They will forget to move my most important... (Score:3)
I am sure they won't move many settings and I have to go to the registry every time. Like keyboard repeat rate, desktop icons, remote desktop connection, network adapters, page file size, sync center, etc... etc... If they have not done it for years, it's very likely they never will.
Gotta hide the kitchen knives from the children! (Score:3)
Glad I'm on a Linux distro. May be a pain in the ass solving problems sometimes, having to research everything from the ground up, but at least I don't have Microsoft actively trying to take away basic tools to do that.
Removing redundancy (Score:4, Insightful)
Us: So, you can do everything now without Control Panel?
Microsoft: Yes, just as you always could.
Us: But that isn't true.
Microsoft: It is, you just weren't looking at things correctly.
Us: (provides huge list of features believed to be missing)
Microsoft: You shouldn't be using any of those features.
Key-words (Score:3)
The real problem is that hierarchies are no longer practical above a certain size. Hierarchically grouping features is still recommended, but shouldn't the only way to navigate or find things. Use synonyms and key-words, and have a "see also" that triggers from those key words.
For example, microphone settings could be tagged with "sound", "microphone", "mike", "mic", "speak", "voice", "speech", "volume", "talk", "mouth", etc.
The bottom or side of such screens could list all the key-words it's under, with the option of clicking on them to get a pop-up or slide-down list of other features sharing that key-word. Other topics that share many of the same key-words could be on a "similar topics" list near the key-word lists. That way if you find something that's kind of close, you can hop around the key-word graph to get closer.
Users should be able to submit key-word suggestions to Microsoft to improve the list over time. (Different languages may require different list associations.)
And allow users to add their own key-words. (MS could use telemetry [snooping] to survey custom suggestions, but that makes many of us nervous.)
Fine, Finally. (Score:4, Interesting)
So yeah change sucks, blah blah blah. Lets at least acknowledge that M$ are at least trying to fix their split settings interface disaster. Even if the new Settings panel is annoying, as long as it actually has all the same options I don't really care. In my personal opinion M$ needs to just start clean again, this time for real. No leaving in cruft from 20 years ago that some joe shmoe needs to satisfy his antiquated year old workflow (even if its just an interface people are familiar with). Start completely fresh and make it consistent across the whole operating system.
Re:God Mode (Score:4, Informative)
1) It's got to be on the desktop.
2) The actual name is "GodMode.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}" (w/o double quotes).
The icon will change from folder to CPL type if it works.
Re: (Score:3)
How could people not know that? So intuitively obvious and typo-proof to boot!