Windows 11: Ten years after it started, Microsoft is still moving Control Panel options to Settings
If you used Windows for years, you know that Microsoft started to introduce the Settings app in Windows as a replacement for the Control Panel. What started out as a seemingly simple job, move everything over and be done with it, has turned into a usability nightmare for administrators all over the world.
The migration is still ongoing, and while much has been moved to the Settings app in Windows 11 by now, the Control Panel is still the place for certain options.
Microsoft released a new build for Windows 11 yesterday and with it come new features. As is the case with these, most are rolling out over time to testers. Why? No one really knows why Microsoft is not unlocking them all for testers, as one of the main purposes for installing test software is, testing.
Anyway, KB5070311 is out for Windows 11, versions 24H2 and 25H2, and you can check out the entire release notes here, in case you are interested.
Migration of Control Panel to Settings continues
When you scroll down on the page to the Settings section, you will notice that Microsoft introduces several changes with this update. One of them moves some options from the Control Panel to the Settings app.
In particular, the preferences for "character repeat delay rate" and "cursor blink rate" are being moved to Settings. Both land in different pages of the Settings app though.
- Character repeat delay rate is located under Settings > Accessibility > Keyboard.
- Cursor blink rate is located under Settings > Accessibility > Text cursor.
So, if you want to access those, you need to open the Settings app and navigate to the options, provided that the change has been rolled out to your device already. You could also use the built-in search, which may speed up things.
As far as the other changes, Microsoft says that the about page in Settings has a new layout now that "organizes device details and related options in one place".
Other than that, Microsoft lists two fixes as well. One addresses a hang when opening the Network & Internet section, another that the title bar and the minimize and maximize buttons overlapped in some scenarios.
Some of these features may land in the last Windows 11 update for 2025 on December 9, 2025.
Now You: do you run test builds of Windows 11 or prefer to run stable versions of the operating system only? Feel free to leave a comment down below.
What happened to “if it aint broke, dont fix it” – we get used to that paradox in Win Word, dont we (from thec/o from Win7 to %$$%^%). There is a Corporate Management Style out with us now – its called MbC – ORIGIN from 2019 describes MbC as managers who never give complete clarity and keep teams confused by design.
The phrase was coined in 1984 by David Henry Torrey while working at a brewery and came out as a satirical board game and rant space.
BTW it is a well known tactic in marketing negotiation – rings bells?
The Control Panel is superior. I can get back to using all the features I want because StartAllBack restores everything. I don’t need to use the Dumb Down settings app.
25H2 is a bug-ridden half-baked intrusive piece of junk, not helped with a godawful new Start menu that you can scarcely customise, and lots if features that have been tweaked for no other reason than Redmond keyboard geeks can’t be bothered to fix existing bugs and feature fails that have been dragging on for years!
The quicker they migrate CP over to S the better rather than this slow migration that not only means searching both apps for something that is either or there, or both, but to relearn how the feature works (or doesn’t) in its new home.
A teensy bit mixed on this slow motion migration. As a fancy IT admin by day, some of the options that have moved to app are benign and easy enough to call from the settings gear of the windows menu screen. You want to change a mouse pointer size? Fine. Click the gear, type in mouse pointer and enjoy yourself. Change the background from that blue, exploding cloud looking Win 11 default? No problem! Off to the gear again, personalization and boom! A picture of Kim Kardashian is now your new desktop wallpaper. All good!
However, want to add a 3-year old printer that already doesn’t have the most stable drivers even from the manufacturer? Bzzztttt! Windows 11, firstly “finds” the printer and 92 other ones on my network that I didn’t ask for, wants me to confirm my choice from the list and is now prompting me to set the selected printer using its (Windows) built-in driver from a pre-loaded repository in the protected preloads section – Same place you get endless Edge and Onedrive prompts multiple times no matter how many time you say no. Of course I’ve used policy to override all this but still.
The moving of the printer installation options and my ability to control when and how the desired printer be installed can be very problematic and very time consuming where it never was before!
Real life example:
I wanted to install an older, commercial Canon ImageRunner Advance C5240 on a network. It came in from a satellite office in another state and the admin there had changed the login and password and of course was nowhere to be seen to shed light on what exactly that information would be. LOL
Hard reset, factory defaults, then the work began to connect it to part of the network serving accounting and payroll. Change of Lan IP to our local network firewall, classic stuff, gateway, subnet, dns… Fresh admin login and password and all is good right? NOPE!
It connected to our firewall and server alright. Server is virtual and firewall, physical on-site. No problems there. Then setting it up to users on local Windows 11 machines! Push it through the server right? How hard can that be? WRONG! Windows 11 at local machines were detecting it and although user don’t have admin rights to add, it was still be detected and prompting for local install. SOOO ANNOYING!
Answer at least for now? I’m sure this has been listed in ghacks at some point before and many are already very aware of it but it does work and at least gives me the local control options for the printer. Yes, I know you can click on advanced in the “new and improved” printer app in windows 11 but it still tries to suggest and prompt for it thinks are the drivers you may want.
shell:::{A8A91A66-3A7D-4424-8D24-04E180695C7A}
In this case of this Canon ImgageRunner, I needed to go to Canon’s website, find the universal driver and install that one despite Windows 11’s knowing of just how to handle that for me!
So if this is the way of control panel for more serious uses going forward. I’m sure a work-around will appear over time. Think Classic Shell…
Lipstick on a pig.
Pig on meth.
I’m pretty sure M.$ uses the “pin the tail on the donkey” method to decide where to put things in the “settings UI” and the stuff that gets stuck on the wall instead of the donkey, just disappears.
If AI is as good as Microsoft claims, why don’t Microsoft just use AI to migrate Control Panel to Settings.
Surely with all this awesome AI, we should be seeing software being released at staggering rates by now. All those long-term issues and bugs being fixed at record rates. The software industry should be on fire! And yet, software development seems slower than it’s ever been. It’s almost like someone is lying about the effectiveness of AI…
They just don’t care about it. Windows is a monopoly on the PC OS market and as long as this is true, they won’t bother to make Windows better, they will only bloat it with overhyped things like agentic AI or whatever is a popular trend at the moment in order to keep adding new things and stay relevant.
But if their users start leaving for other OSes and Windows market share drops to around 50% or below, they will immediately start caring once more.
I’m just concerned if Linux and Mac start gaining market share, will Microsoft once more try to bully Linux out of the competition like they did in the 90s when IBM was selling PCs with Linux. Because Microsoft have never shown to be a fair player.
even with all the changes the Control Panel is still better than the Settings crapp
Microsoft should just revive Windows 7 and backport the under the hood changes from Windows 8.x and newer versions but never to include telemetry and other bloat.
That would’ve happened if they cared about Windows and its users. The reality is they don’t care how awful Windows gets as long as it makes them money and they openly hate their users and have showed it time and again.
First time was when in Windows 8 people found a way to use the original Windows 7 files for the start menu and with a small fix to make it work, Microsoft swiftly released an update that made it not work, which is crazy when they had more serious problems and bugs to fix with Windows 8 and took their sweet time doing that for years, but for this one “problem” they immediately “fixed” it. It’s not they don’t have manpower or are out of the loop, they know exactly what’s wrong, they just don’t care and want their users to have a garbage experience. Otherwise why would they remove the option to have the Windows 7 start menu in Windows 8?
Second is when they released Windows 11 with the locked taskbar that can’t be moved around. There is no reason for this change and nothing justifies it, yet they ignore the people who want to have this.
Third is when they enforced completing a Windows 10/11 install with an online account and when people found ways to bypass that, they quickly jumped in to patch it out so people can’t do it anymore. All the while other issues linger.
I read about Windows 11 updates breaking crucial parts of the OS, things that were never problems years ago. Windows 8, 10 and 11 are like beta versions in full release and with a price tag. I remember the beta of 7 and when it released and it didn’t have any bugs, or at least I didn’t encounter any. When it released fully it was stable from day one. Something has changed in the company and they no longer test what they make anymore. And they don’t care.
The Settings app debuted in Windows 8 which was released in 2012 so that’s 13 years
This is correct. It’s 13 years old and still sucks.