How to open the Control Panel in Windows 10

This brief tutorial shows students and new users how to open the (old) classic Windows 10 control panel.

If you’ve been following the news, you must have already heard that as of the October 2020 Update (20H2) release, the classic system control panel has been hidden in Windows 10.

Many new features were released with this update, and eliminating the classic control panel was one of the many changes added to this release.

Learning how to open the Control Panel in Windows 10 is important for users who rely on the classic system settings interface instead of the newer modern settings app. The Control Panel provides access to advanced system settings, such as hardware and software management, device drivers, and network settings.

Knowing how to access the Control Panel is also useful when the modern settings app is not working correctly or when users need to troubleshoot and fix system issues.

In addition, some users simply prefer the classic interface and may find it more comfortable.

Access the Classic Control Panel

There’s no easy button or link to the old or classic control panel. It is hidden from the standard view. However, there’s a secret command you can run to get there. So far, that’s the only workaround I’ve seen.

To get to the old control panel, press Windows + R on your keyboard to open the run dialog box.

You can start and search for Run to find the Run command app.

When the command box opens, simply type the commands below into the box. Then press the Enter key to open the old control panel.

explorer.exe shell:::{BB06C0E4-D293-4f75-8A90-CB05B6477EEE}

Type the command above into the box and press Enter.

That should open the classic control panel as shown below:

That’s it!

Conclusion

This brief tutorial showed you how to access the classic control panel in the updated Windows 10. If you find any error above, please use the comment form below to report.