Control Panel Applet Shortcuts

From the August 2002 Edition
of Windows IT Pro
Michael Otey
TOP 10
InstantDoc #25653
Windows IT Pro

Streamline access to essential administrative tasks

In Top Ten, "Rundll32 Shortcuts," July 2002, InstantDoc ID 25339, you learned how to directly run several Windows configuration wizards from the command line. Now, to help you further streamline your administrative efforts, I show you how to build shortcuts to 10 of the most commonly used Control Panel applets. Simply enter the commands listed for each applet, and add the shortcuts to your Start menu, a desktop icon, or a folder to create custom control panels for your users. I tested these shortcuts in Windows 2000, but they also work in Windows XP (most of them will also work in Windows NT 4.0).

10.
Power Options Properties applet—Laptop users regularly need to adjust the power properties they use. For example, you can use this applet to switch from Portable/Mobile mode when you're on the road to Home/Office Desk mode when you're in the office.

control powercfg.cpl

9.
Phone and Modem Options applet—Suppose you're on the road and need to quickly adjust your laptop modem's dialing rules. This shortcut lets you directly access the Phone and Modem Options applet.

control modem.cpl

8.
Display Properties applet—This applet lets you select your wallpaper and screen savers (and password-protect your screen saver), as well as adjust visual effects and display settings.

control desk.cpl

7.
Add/Remove Programs applet—Using this applet, you can view and remove currently installed programs, and you can update their installed feature sets. If you need to recover disk space, removing old programs is a good first step.

control appwiz.cpl

6.
Printers Folder applet—Managing printouts and controlling the status of your printer is one of the most common system-management functions that the Printers Folder applet provides. To enable direct access to the Printers folder, enter

control printers

5.
Sounds and Multimedia Properties applet—This applet lets you manage your system's sound events, adjust the sound volume, and manage audio devices. I use this applet first when I troubleshoot system sound problems.

control mmsys.cpl

4.
Date/Time Properties applet—Access this applet to adjust your system's date and time settings and set your local time zone.

control timedate.cpl

3.
Internet Properties applet—Use this applet to set your browser's home page; clear your system's history links; delete temporary Internet files (which can consume a surprising amount of disk storage); set your preferred browser, email, and newsgroup applications; and perform other Internet-related tasks.

control inetcpl.cpl

2.
Network and Dial-up Connections applet—This applet lets you view the status of your network connections and change your network configuration properties, among other important functions.

control ncpa.cpl

1.
System Properties applet—This applet is probably the most important Control Panel feature. The applet's General tab displays the OS level and service pack information. Other tabs let you adjust many other important system properties, such as changing your system's network identification, running Device Manager to manage hardware devices, and editing environment variables.

control sysdm.cpl

End of Article

These don't seem to work correctly if you want to run these using the 'runas' command as an administrator on a workstation that has a domain user account logged into the workstation. Any ideas why? I can run any admin. tool that a domain user doesn't have access to using "runas".

Mike January 30, 2003

I'm having the same issue as Mike. Does anyone know why control.exe doesn't like running under alternate credentials?

Kenneth September 26, 2003

Helpful for these shortcuts.

wom March 04, 2004

If you want to start up with a particular tab visible, append ,,2 (for example) to get the second tab. So, control sysdm.cpl,,2 gets the hardware tab.

Michael McKechnie April 07, 2004

Is there anyway to tell the mmsys.cpl to change the current sound scheme from the command line, (something like mmsys.cpl ,sound_scheme=2) so that the sysems sound scheme wil change without the .cpl ever being seen. In the same trend, changing the default sound device in something like mmsys.cpl ,2 ,default_sound_device=2 or something like it. I don't even know if the mmsys.cpl supports these kind of commandline parameters. Can anyone help?
TIA

Peter April 19, 2004

On a workstation which is part of a workgroup, the command:

runas /user:Guess-who "control appwiz.cpl"

works quite nicely where 'Guess-who' is a local administrator. The tricks seem to be (1) quotes around the complete control command and (2) leaving out the local machine prefix, providing only the administrative user name.

Anonymous User November 15, 2004 (Article Rating:

)

control printers - This command isn't working for me on XP Pro SP2.

According to MS "Some items, such as the Printers folder and desktop items, are opened indirectly and cannot be started with the runas command."

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/home/using/productdoc/en/default.asp?url=/windowsxp/home/using/productdoc/en/runas.asp

Anonymous User January 11, 2005 (Article Rating:

)

Check out: http://blogs.msdn.com/aaron_margosis/archive/2004/07/07/175488.aspx

Basically run an Internet Explorer with admin privileges by right clicking on a shortcut and selecting RunAs.

With privileged IE type "Control Panel" in to address bar and you're off.

Anonymous User April 06, 2005 (Article Rating:

)

Nice one.

jchevvakula June 03, 2007 (Article Rating:

)

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