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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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).

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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

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