Reorganizing Control Panel

Reorganizing Control Panel

The Control Panel in Windows XP includes a category view that divides specific tasks and Control Panel icons into different categories. You can include a Control Panel icon in a particular category by adding a REG_DWORD value for it in the key HKLM\ Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Control Panel\Extended Properties\ {305CA226-D286-468e-B848-2B2E8E697B74} 2. (The 2 is part of the key's name.) Most of the Control Panel icons already have values in this key, so all you have to do is assign a category ID to each one. The following list describes the available category IDs:

• 0x00000000.

  Other Control Panel Options. (Any tool that does not specify a category ID is placed in this category.)

• 0x00000001.

  Appearance and Themes.

• 0x00000002.

  Printers and Other Hardware.

• 0x00000003.

  Network and Internet Connections.

• 0x00000004.

  Sounds, Speech, and Audio Devices.

• 0x00000005.

  Performance and Maintenance.

• 0x00000006.

  Date, Time, Language, and Regional Options.

• 0x00000007.

  Accessibility Options.

• 0xFFFFFFFF.

  This indicates not to put the tool in any category, and is for special tools that only start directly, such as Add Or Remove Programs.

For example, to put the System Control Panel tool in the Appearance and Themes category, set %SystemRoot%\System32\sysdm.cpl to 0x01. For Control Panel tools that are implemented as shell namespace extensions (for example, Fonts and Scheduled Tasks), the category ID is specified in the registry under the CLSID entry. For example, the category setting for the Administrative Tools folder is in HKCR\CLSID\{D20EA4E1-3957-11D2-A40B-OC5020524153}. It's the REG_DWORD value {305CA226-D286-468e-B848-2B2E8E697B74} 2, which is set to 0x05 by default.

NOTE
Windows doesn't provide a method for creating new categories or adding tasks to existing categories.