Several applications and drivers add new extensions to the Windows Control Panel which sooner or later fills itself with official and third-party extensions. Hardware entries like the Creative Audio Console or the NVIDIA Control Panel Applet and software extensions like Adobe Gamma, Java or Quicktime add an icon to the Control Panel without asking the user or offering additional features that make it necessary that they are placed in the Control Panel.
Visual Controls is a tiny application with a size of 82 Kilobyte that lists all third party Control Panel extensions giving the user the option to manage these extensions. They can be enabled or disabled by checking or unchecking the related entry. Changes are applied instantly and the icons will no longer be available once the Control Panel is refreshed or restarted.
Visual Controls requires the .net Framework 2.0 or higher. A download link is available on the developers homepage.
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2 Responses to “Manage Additional Control Panel Extensions”
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[...] Windows only: Visual Controls is a super-tiny, stand-alone application that does just one thing—modify which applications can show icons inside your Control Panel&mdsah;and does it very well. The changes you make are instant and permanent, so even if you only download Visual Controls just to get rid of the ubiquitous Quicktime button and then delete it, it will have been worth your time. The program, however, can also make a nice addition to your thumb drive system-fixing tools. Visual Controls is a free download for Windows systems only, and requires the .NET 2.0 or higher framework. Visual Controls [via gHacks] [...]
I do not know why would any one want third-party extensions from showing up in their Control panel. After all, how many users regularly go to control panel and use the extensions from there. If they do not want to do something, they just don’t use it and leave it like that. I do not see any issues having them in the control panel, and the good thing is that if you feel like using them, you can use it whenever you want to. So my point is leave them there just like that, after all they do not mess with you in anyway, :-)..