The Control Panel is a collection of applets,
or small programs, that modify different aspects of your Windows 8
system, including hardware, software setup, security, configuration, and
user account management. The Control Panel is a special folder that
contains pointers to these .cpl applets. Every version of Windows since
1.0 has had a Control Panel.
You can think of the Control Panel home screen
as a “table of contents,” where each link opens either a control panel
applet (known as a control panel item) or another category screen. The
search box allows you to search the control panels by name, keyword, or
function. If you open the drop-down menu, you can replace the category
view with an icon view .
You can access all the control panels from this interface, whereas only
a subset of the more important control panel settings are exposed in
the tile-based interface Settings screens.
The Desktop Control Panel home page gives you access to all Control Panel functions.
The icon view of the Control Panel
Control panels are opened via from a variety
of interface actions. For example, you can select the Personalization
command from the Desktop’s context menu to open the Personalization
control panel. Control panels are extensible, so you will find
third-party control panels from other vendors either as stand-alone
panels or as add-in tabs in existing control panels. A very common
example of a third-party control panel is the extensions that mouse
vendors create. The groupings that you see in the Control Panel home
page are category pages. From a category page you can open multiple
control panels.
Control panels allow you
to set literally thousands of settings, too many to fully document here.
The best way to figure out how to use a control panel feature is to use
Windows 8’s excellent Search function.
To open the Control Panel
• Right-click the lower-left corner of your display or press 
+X, and select Control Panel from the Management menu .
The Control Panel command
• Press 
+E to open Windows Explorer. Click the Open Control Panel icon in the Computer ribbon .
Click the Open Control Panel icon in the ribbon to view the Control Panel.
• Press +R to open the Run dialog box, enter control, and tap or click OK .
Enter control into the Run dialog box to open the Control Panel.
• Press +C to open the Charms bar ; tap or click the Settings charm. The Settings menu displays a Control Panel link just under the category heading .
Use the Settings charm to access the Control Panel.
The Control Panel command inside the tile-based interface Settings pane
• In the tile-based interface, start typing the word control. Search will highlight the Control Panel as its default match.
To search for a Control Panel feature
1. Press +W to open Search for Settings.
2. Type in the function you wish to change—screen resolution, for example.
There’s a good chance that Windows will display a match for the control panel that adjusts that setting.
Tip
.cpl files are stored in the Windows\System32
folder, among other locations. Unless you show hidden file extensions,
you can’t search for or see these programs. When you double-click these
program files, the Control Panel interface appears. Type control <control panel name> into the Run dialog box to open that control panel.
