Page 456 - Windows 10 May 2019 Update The Missing Manual: The Book That Should Have Been in the Box

UP TO SPEED CONTROL PANEL TERMINOLOGY HELL

The Control Panel continues to be an object of bafflement for
Microsoft, not to mention its customers; from version to version of

Windows, this feature undergoes more reorganizations than a bankrupt
airline.

Windows 10 presents the most oddball arrangement yet. There are far

more icons in the Control Panel than ever before—about 50 of them, in
fact. But they’re not all the same kind of thing.

Some are the traditional applets, meaning mini-applications (little

programs). Others are nothing more than tabbed dialog boxes. Some
open up wizards (interview dialog boxes that walk you through a

procedure) or even ordinary Explorer windows. And even among the
applets, the look and substance of the Control Panel panels vary widely.

So what are people supposed to call these things? The world needs a

general term for the motley assortment of icons in the Control Panel
window.

To keep you and your well-intentioned author from going quietly
insane, this chapter refers to all the Control Panel icons as either icons

(which they definitely are), control panels, or applets (which most of
them are—and besides, that’s the traditional term for them).

Control Panel Views

When it first appears, the Control Panel looks like the one shown in

Figure 7-7. But that’s just the beginning.

The “View by” drop-down menu (upper right) shows that there are three
ways to view the complete collection of control panels: by category or as a
list of small or large icons.