Please note that the Windows Utility Launcher software requires the Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 (SP1) on the system.

Download Windows Utility Launcher from this link. Double click the .exe file for Windows Utility Launcher and you will see the following window open.

In the Utilities Tab, all utilities shown are quickly accessed by a single click. You click the button below each of the listings to access them. The two buttons in the lower right corner allow you to exit the utilities or minimize them to the System Tray at will. Notice that the Status Bar at the bottom indicates the version of Windows being used. Be aware that this will only work for Windows 7 and Vista operating systems and is not functional in Windows XP or XP virtual mode.

The Settings Tab allows you to set this application for launch on startup and also to start minimized in the System Tray. As you move on to the third tab, the About Tab, you will find basic application information. There is also a way to contact the developer, should the need arise.

Access the right-click menu from the System Tray. You will find the main menu by holding the pointer over or clicking on “Windows Utilities”. You can also access the Notepad and Calculator utilities. The menu simply contains the same options as the primary window does. If the Windows Utility Launcher is minimized, as it probably will be, this is how to access the different utilities easily from the System Tray.

By clicking on Services, for example, from the main menu of Windows Utilities Launcher, The Services menu opened immediately. This gives quick access to stopping or starting services with a quick launch. This application is essentially a time saver for system administration by making utility access a breeze.

Third party programs like Computer Customizer or Folder 2 My PC added that functionality to the operating system.

My Computer Manager is a free portable program for Windows that can be used to add files or folders to the My Computer display in Windows Explorer. When you start the program for the first time you see a minimalistic interface with options to add folders or files in a simple or advanced mode to My Computer or the Control Panel.

Simple mode comes without the customizations of the advanced mode. You basically pick a folder or file which is then added automatically to the selected location. You repeat the selection for every file or folder that you want displayed under My Computer or the Control Panel.

The advanced selection mode offers more customizations. You can select a custom name, the path and icons, as well as arguments if you want to add a file to the location.

All files and folders that have been added this way are displayed in the main program interface. Here they can be removed again if they are no longer needed.

Please note that there are no sorting options available in the program as items are sorted automatically in Windows Explorer.

You can use My Computer Manager to add favorite folders and programs to the My Computer dialog for fast access. The process is identical for adding folders or files to the Control Panel.

My Computer Manager is compatible with all recent 32-bit and 64-bit editions of the Microsoft Windows operating system. Users can download the portable program from the developer website.

But changing the display to icons is not the most comfortable option. You have probably heard about the god mode before. You can basically create a folder with a special name to get direct access to all Windows 7 Control Panel tools.

To do that create a new folder on your system and rename it to GodMode.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}

Once done you have a single folder that you can click whenever you want to access all control panel applets at once.

But this guide is not about the god mode. I recently stumbled upon an even easier option to display all the control panel items. The core benefit of this method is that it works right from the standard control panel menu. It becomes even more effective if you pin the control panel to the taskbar (if you run Windows 7).

Jochen found out that you can use the run form of the start menu to display a large list of control panel items:

Click on the start orb and enter e into the run form there and wait until the search results show up. Click on Control Panel. This opens a new Windows Explorer window with all control panel items containing the letter e on the same page. That’s more than 200 different items on my 64-bit Windows 7 system.

It does not seem possible to do a wildcard search though to display all items at once.

You can however use the search form in the explorer window to find specific items. Just enter what you are looking for, e.g. firewall, network or desktop. Only the correct items are displayed afterwards.

Here is a trick to combine the best of both worlds. Open the Control Panel and enter a search term. Do you see what is happening? Windows will display all relevant control panel items, even those that are not displayed in the category or icon view by default.

Windows 7 users can pin the Control Panel to the taskbar to open, search and access all control panel tools in record time.

This method is faster if you know what you are looking for. How do you use the Windows Control Panel?

The software is still portable and needs to be executed with elevated rights. The interface itself has not changed a lot, only the number of items that can be added and the new Control Panel Items tab are new.

It appears that the available items have been more than doubled by the developer.

A quick count reveals more than 60 items that can be added to My Computer. The items are divided into the common items and must have items tabs. Some of the new options of the Common Items tab are access to the Windows Firewall, Power Options, Backup and Restore, Phone and Modem, and Recovery.

The Must have items, which previously were called Other Items, now include links to items such as Default Programs, System Restore, the Recycle Bin, Personalization and the Credential Manager.

The functionality remains the same. You pick the items you want from the list by placing a checkmark in their box. A click on Apply Changes at the end of the process adds links to the selected programs and features to My Computer.

Items are removed in a similar fashion, the only difference is that they need to be unselected before the Apply Changes button is activated. The changes are immediate, the new items appear directly without restart.

The program supports adding two items to the Control Panel, with the likelihood that the developer will add items in a future release of the application.

It is currently possible to add Internet Explorer and Libraries to the Windows Control Panel which appear as icons after the apply button has been activated.

Companel has been tested on a Windows 7 Professional 64-bit system. It worked without problems. The developer has not posted any compatibility information on his homepage. It is however likely that the program will work under other Windows operating systems as well.

The easiest way to launch the Windows Update applet is to click on the start orb of the operating system to launch the Control Panel that is linked from there.

The Windows Update control panel applet is located under System And Security.

The first screen displays the updates that are currently available as well as information about the most recent update checks, the last time and day updates were installed and what kind of updates are received. It is here possible to install the updates or get additional information about each update.

The left sidebar offers several options. This includes a manual check for updates, information about updates that have been previously installed in the operating system and update options. A click on change settings displays the available options to the user.

Important Updates details how updates are processed on the system. The recommended setting is to download and install updates automatically on the system. This gives the user no control over the update process. The three additional options are the following:

• Download updates but let me choose whether to install them
• Check for updates but let me choose whether to download and install them
• Never check for updates

The first two give the user time to check the updates before they are installed on the system.

But the options offer more than just a setting that determines if and how updates are installed.

Give me recommended updates the same way I receive important updates adds recommended updates to the updating process. Users who have configured updates to be installed automatically on the system would not only install important updates (usually security and stability updates) but also recommended updates which range from compatibility updates to revised help files and feature additions.

Recommended updates are otherwise (with the option disabled) displayed as available updates but installed automatically.

Who can install updates defines if all users of the computer can install updates. Standard users can not install updates if the option is disabled.

Microsoft Update determines if Windows Update will check for updates for other (installed) Microsoft products and new Microsoft software as well.

Software notifications finally determines if detailed information are displayed when new Microsoft software is available.

What are the best Windows Update settings then? I personally prefer to receive update notifications and select updates individually for download and installation. This gives me time to block updates that I do not need before they are installed on the computer. Most Windows users on the other hand may be better of with the automatic installation of updates, especially if they do not have the time or experience to determine if the update is important.

I keep all remaining options enabled. The who can install options stays enabled because I’m working on a single user system. If I had to share the PC I would disable it to avoid problems when other users are installing updates that may conflict with software or hardware running on the system.

How do you handle Windows updates? Do you install them automatically or test / check them before you install them?

On a side note: If you want to change the display in the Control Panel you need to press Windows-R, type gpedit.msc and hit enter. Then locate User Configuration > Administrative Templates > Control Panel in the sidebar and there the preference Always open All Control Panel Items when opening Control Panel. Double-click the preference and enable it in the window that opens.

Users without the Group Policy Editor can make the change directly in the Windows Registry by pressing Windows-R, typing regedit and hitting the enter key. They need to navigate to the key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\policies\Explorer, locate the parameter ForceClassicControlPanel and change the value to 1. A restart, log off / on may be required before the changes become visible this way.

Back to adding Control Panel items to the Windows 7 taskbar to launch them faster. When you launch the Control Panel an icon gets placed in the Windows 7 taskbar. The jumplist menu is displayed on a right-click, and we are going to use this menu to place Control Panel items in it. Here is what you need to do.

Open the Windows Control Panel and drag and drop items that you work with regularly to the taskbar icon. That’s it. Windows will pin the Control Panel to the taskbar, but it can be removed if it should not stay there. The jumplist items are there on every start, so that the items can be started with a right-click on the icon in the taskbar and a left-click on the desired item.

Have another tip that you want to share? Let us know in the comments.

In this piece of the puzzle we are going to take a look at Xfce’s “control panel”, the Xfce 4 Settings Manager. From this tool you can configure nearly all of the preferences for the Xfce 4′s desktop. It’s a very handy tool to have installed and will keep you from having to poke around the menu system to find the various setting tools.

Installation

The Xfce Settings Manager is not installed by default. So you may or may not have it. If you look in Start > Preferences and do not see Xfce 4 Settings Manager resting at the top of your menu, it is not installed. To install this tool you need only follow these simple steps:

1. Open up the Add/Remove Software tool (found in Start > Administration > Add/Remove Software).
2. Search for “xfce4-settings” (no quotes).
3. Mark xfce4-settings for installation.
4. Click Apply to install.

That’s it! You should now see the tool in the Administration sub-menu.

Included tools

Figure 1

When you fire up the Settings Manager you will see everything you need in one window (see Figure 1):

• Accessibility: Configure your keyboard and mouse accessibility such as sticky/slow/bounce keys as well as mouse acceleration and repeat interval.
• Appearance: Customize the look of your desktop (style, icons, fonts, settings).
• Calendar: This controls the Orage settings.
• Desktop: Configure the background wallpaper, menus, and icons.
• Display: Change the resolution of your display.
• File Manager: Configure the behavior of the Thunar file manager.
• Input method: Enable other input devices (like Tablets).
• Keyboard: Configure the behavior of your keyboard (shortcuts, layout, etc).
• Mouse: Configure how the mouse pointer and devices behave.
• Notification: Customize how notifications appear on your desktop.
• Panel: Customize your Xfce panel.
• Preferred applications: Set the preferred web browser, mail reader, and terminal emulator.
• Removable drives and media: Configure the management of removable drives and media (cameras, PDAs, printers, input devices, etc).
• Session and startup: Configure the desktop startup (such as auto-start applications), the splash screen, manage your current session, and configure GNOME or KDE compatibility.
• Window Manager: Configure the style, focus, keyboard shortcuts, window snapping, workspace wrapping, and double-click action.
• Window Manager Tweaks: Configure window manager effects (like compositing, placement, workspaces, window cycling, etc).
• Workspaces: Configure how many workspaces as well as each workspaces name.

That’s quite a lot of available configurations for a desktop environment thought to be too light weight and featureless to be of any use. In fact, after playing around with the Settings Manager you will quickly realize how flexible and powerful Xfce really has become.

You will notice no OK or Save buttons. This is because as you make a change to any of the settings available in the Settings Manager, they are saved immediately. Just click the Close button and you’re good to go.

Final thoughts

I hope you are starting to see that Xfce 4 is not just a desktop people use when they have an old machine. In fact, this desktop is quite power and might be just the ticket for those looking for something a bit different and a bit more “old school” with “new school” capabilities.

YaST started it’s life in 1995 as a C++ written ncurses GUI and was originally written by Thoamas Fehr and Michael Andres. Believe it or not, YaST has retained that ncurses front end (in case you are without a GUI, this comes in handy) and has a gui for both GTK (GNOME) and QT (KDE). Let’s give YaST a look and see just what it has to offer.

Starting YaST

Figure 1

Naturally you can start YaST from either the menu or the command line. From where in the menu will depend upon which desktop environment you are using. If you are using KDE (as shown in Figure 1), you will find YaST in the Computer tab of the “start” menu. If you are using GNOME, look in System > Administration.

You can also start YaST from the command line. Depending upon which version you need to start you would use one of the following commands:

yast –qt

yast –gtk

yast –ncurses

NOTE: The above commands contain two dashes (“-”), not “em dashes”.

You can run the ncurses version even if you have your graphical desktop open and running. Since some of the tools contained within YaST require administrative privileges, you will, upon launching YaST, have to give your administrator password.

The lay of the land

Figure 2

When you fire up YaST what you will see should immediately feel familar (see Figure 2).  As you can see, the left pane contains categories and the right pane contains the entries for each categories. You will also notice that you can simply scroll through every one of the modules (on the right hand side) without having to select a category. You can also search for a module.

Depending upon your setup you will see different modules. For example, I am running OpenSuSE in a virtual machine (using VirtualBox). Because of this I have no video card or monitor to configure. If I were running OpenSuSE without virtualization, YaST would have been able to detect the card/monitor and offer the module for configuration.

As I said, YaST is a one-stop-shop. From within YaST you can also manage your system’s packages. If you click on the Software section in the right pane you will find a number of entries related to the installation and management of software. You will also notice what seems like two tools for installation:

• Add-on Products
• Software Management

These are actually very different tools. Add-on products are products that can be added from a CD/DVD (or, in some cases) on-line source. The software management tool, however, is exactly what you would think it is – Add/Remove Software.

Power at your fingertips

There are also some fairly powerful tools within YaST. If you look at either the Novell AppArmor section, the System section, or the Networking section you will find some tools you might not have ever been able to find in another distribution’s control panel. Some of these are:

• /etc/sysconfig Editor
• Boot loader configuration
• System Backup
• System Restore
• Kerberos client
• LDAP client
• Windows Domain Membership

and much more.

Final thoughts

YaST is one of the most powerful configuration tools in all of Linux-dom. Without installing a tool like Webmin, you will be hard pressed to find any other “control panel” as fully realized as you will with YaST. If you have been looking for a reason to give OpenSuSE a try, let YaST be that reason.

It is possible to customize that display either by adding a new favorite location to the sidebar listing (by dragging and dropping the folder there) or by adding a new library.

There is also a third option that does not become apparent to most Windows 7 users. It is possible to change the configuration so that additional links are displayed in that sidebar in Windows Explorer.

The two prominent additions of this configuration change are links to the control panel and recycle bin.

The left image shows the standard display of Windows Explorer with the categories favorites, libraries, homegroup, computer and network while the right screenshots shows the extended display with all folders shown.

The right folder structure has also changed if you look closely as the Desktop now makes up the root of nearly every other folder in that display except the favorite links.

It is really simply to display the control panel and recycle bin in Windows Explorer. All that needs to be done is to open an explorer window, click on Tools > Folder Options and check the Show all folders box under Navigation Pane.

The new display mode is automatically visible after leaving the configuration window.

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.

The YourCPLconfig.txt contains the information of which applications are added to the Windows control panel. By default a link to the Registry is added. The format for adding new entries is always the same. It begins with the path to the executable, a name for the application, a description and possible command line options. Each application has be to added in a separate line.

The line for adding Regedit to the Control Panel looks like this: c:\windows\regedit.exe Regedit Registry editor. You also need to make sure that you press TAB after each parameter, if you do not do this you will receive a CPL error showing up in the Control Panel.

As you can see it is relatively easy to add new applications to the Control Panel. Possible applications that I think are useful to add are Autoruns, Process Explorer, True Crypt and another uninstaller (Revo Uninstaller for instance).

The following method might be useful for experienced users who like to access those programs faster. I’m going to list the filenames of many system tools. All you would have to do is to hit Windows + R and type the name of the file to open it. This might be faster on some occasions. By knowing the names you could also create some shortcuts on your desktop if you need one or more of those programs on a daily basis.

Backup or Restore Wizard – ntbackup.exe
Clean up Drive – cleanmgr.exe
Command Line – cmd.exe
Computer Management – compmgmt.msc
Create a shared folder – shrpubw.exe
Device Manager – devmgmt.msc
Disk Defragmenter – dfrg.msc
Disk Management – diskmgmt.msc
Event Viewer – eventvwr.msc
File Signature Verification – sigverif.exe
Group Policy – gpedit.msc
Local Security Settings – secpol.msc
Memory Usage – mem
Performance – perfmon.msc
Securing the Windows XP Account Database – syskey.exe
Services – services.msc
Shared Folders – fsmgmt.msc
System Configuration Editor – sysedit
System Configuration Utility – msconfig.exe
User Accounts – lusrmgr.msc
Windows Management Infrastructure – wmimgmt.msc