You may have read headlines last week about Microsoft removing the Control Panel from Windows soon, but the death of the Control Panel has been greatly exaggerated. The inaccurate reports stemmed from a single support document, originally spotted by Neowin. Microsoft has now updated the support document to make it clear that Control Panel isn’t in danger of being removed from Windows anytime soon.
“The Control Panel is in the process of being deprecated in favor of the Settings app,” said Microsoft in its support note last week. While Microsoft has been working on moving Control Panel items to the Settings interface for more than a decade, this seemingly small update to a support document triggered headlines about the Control Panel being removed “soon.”
“Microsoft finally officially confirms it’s killing Windows Control Panel sometime soon” said Neowin, “Microsoft formally deprecates the 39-year-old Windows Control Panel” declared Ars Technica. Many others reported that the end of the Control Panel was near, but over the weekend Microsoft updated it support note to make it clear it’s merely in the continued process of moving items over to the Settings app.
“Many of the settings in Control Panel are in the process of being migrated to the Settings app,” says Microsoft. I asked the company to comment on the original support note and the updated one, but Microsoft hasn’t provided The Verge with a statement in time for publication.
Either way, Microsoft has been moving more Control Panel settings over to the Settings interface in recent months. Windows 11 is finally getting mouse settings that let you avoid the Control Panel soon, removing another big reason for having to use the Control Panel.
Many Windows users still prefer the Control Panel interface to the Settings one, though. It offers up a lot of settings in an easy to use interface where you don’t have to dig into multiple levels to find what you’re looking for. Microsoft has been refining its Settings interface since Windows 8, with plenty of overhauls in both Windows 10 and 11.
The software giant still hasn’t added Control Panel to its list of deprecated features in Windows, so it’s not going away anytime soon. Microsoft typically adds Windows features to this formal deprecation list months or even years in advance to warn businesses and consumers of their removal.
