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The Classic Control Panel In Windows May Be Gone

Posted by timothy on from the good-riddance-or-sorely-missed dept.

jones_supa writes In Windows 8, there was an arrangement of two settings applications: the Control Panel for the desktop and the PC Settings app in the Modern UI side. With Windows 10, having the two different applications has started to look even more awkward, which has been voiced loud and clear in the feedback too. Thus, the work at Microsoft to unify the settings programs has begun. The traditional Control Panel is being transformed to something temporarily called "zPC Settings" (sic), which is a Modern UI app that melts together the current two settings applications.

20 of 347 comments (clear)

  1. Please Microsoft... by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's one thing to abuse the users with interface changes, but don't make the job for I.T. techs any harder as it it. We already got a lifetime of job security because of Windows.

    1. Re:Please Microsoft... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      But after windows 8, the users need help even to restart their machines. Who would have thought at UX meeting, that people do not find the hidden shutdown option by moving mouse cursor to magic right upper corner.

    2. Re:Please Microsoft... by FSWKU · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Maybe I am wrong, but over the years I have noted an increasing condescendension of IT people over "mere users". I wonder why that is. Bear in mind that IT typically isn't the company's cash cow, but "overhead", making this condescension rather inappropriate imho. Even on /. there are many "users" that are no IT people: designers, programmers, etc. I wonder why the interface they are using is apparently less important than computer maintenance software, or any other user experience, for that matter.

      The "overhead" designation is precisely the reason IT people tend to hate users (at least in my experience). The end-user sees the IT person as nothing more than an electronic janitor who's sole purpose is to clean up the messes that they, the user, were too careless or too inept to prevent from happening in the first place. Thus, they don't bother to learn how to do things properly, they don't learn how to keep from getting a virus, they don't learn how to do even the simplest of things because "That's IT's job. I shouldn't have to know computers!" No, they don't have to know the ins and outs of every modern OS, but they should know how to at least keep it from obliterating everything they're working on (meaning stop clicking "OK" on every damn thing that pops up!). Then to top it all off, they behave as if security policies, best practices, etc. don't apply to them, even though management approved them as being a site-wide mandate...

      So in short, users see IT as "the help" and treat them as such. And much like a janitor who is constantly cleaning up after idiots who have no concern for anyone other than themselves, the IT worker learns to hate certain users because they seem to have a mission in life to make IT's job as miserable as possible.

      --
      "So after all this, you make my case for me. To end this stalemate, you must die..."
    3. Re:Please Microsoft... by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      whoosh!

    4. Re:Please Microsoft... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I work at a smaller company (~150 people) and regularly chat with the janitors. They get treated like utter trash by the white-collar workers here, to the point that people will spill coffee on carpets and hardwood floor and leave it to dry, only to later get very upset over the janitors who now have even more work than normally and stains that are near-impossible to remove. It's not the job of our janitors to clean up after every little accident that people are too lazy to take care of, nor is it their job to wash the dishes or tidy up trash that people are too lazy to throw in the garbage bin, but many of my colleagues think that they can do whatever the fuck they please.

      I'd say the same goes for IT. If my computer breaks I need the help of IT, but I shouldn't assume that I can break it through negligence just because we have IT staff. If I have a service contract on my car I still need to learn how to drive it to avoid unnecessary damages, for example by learning how to change gear and not hit other cars on the road.

    5. Re:Please Microsoft... by bwcbwc · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Yeah, if they reorganize the "PC Settings" into categories where we have to read the minds of the MS development team to figure out what category the applet runs under,it'll be another C-F. How many IT folks here _don't_ switch the current control panel to "Classic" view on Win Server 2003/2008 or Win7? Don't force folks into an extra layer of memorization to figure out how to get to the WIndows Services dialog, etc.

      --
      We are the 198 proof..
  2. And... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It will have even less functionality than before. Because they keep trying to "simplify" things for the dumb users out there, by removing any type of "advanced" feature. Which means you will be stuck having to manually edit the Registry or gpedit or through some third party software that allow access to those now "hidden" features.

    1. Re:And... by sexconker · · Score: 4, Insightful

      So that multiple programs can share the same settings system-wide. The worst thing about Linux is that every program works in a different non-standard way.

      Like putting system config in /etc and user config in $HOME, you mean?

      Like putting system config in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE and user config in HKEY_USERS, you mean?
      The registry is trash, but so is a mish-mash of non-standard textfiles strewn about.

      The problem that's specific to Windows is that programs can decide to use the registry, text files, or both, and when they use text files they can be in my documents, (which is now a library with no fixed location), the program's installation folder, the system-wide application data folder, or a user-specific application data folder. When using an application data folder, you have the choice of using Local, LocalLow, or Roaming. No one in the world understands the difference between these folders or why some programs use one over another (or use multiple!).

      It wouldn't be a problem if everything was relegated to living in one of:
      A: The application's install directory
      B: A single directory (one per application) in a specific user/system directory (or both)
      C: Living in the registry (again, user/system/both as appropriate)

      But when applications can choose A, B, C, A & B, A & C, B & C, or A, B & C it's a fucking nightmare.

  3. Non-Microsoft Items by darkain · · Score: 3, Insightful

    And how exactly do they plan on dealing with Non-Microsoft items in this new settings environment? A huge part of why Windows has always won the OS wars was due to 3rd party extensibility and backwards compatibility.

    This is forcing things to become non-standard, where programs are going to have to start having their own "control panels" in their own hard to find locations, rather than having a single place we all know and rely on to administer machines.

  4. This looks familiar by ArcadeMan · · Score: 3, Insightful

    As a Mac user, I find the "zPC Settings" categories quite similar to what Apple uses in OS X.

    It's not about "dumbing down" features, it's about having clear categories at the first level. If Microsoft hides settings from level 2 and up, then it does become a problem.

    Also, I find the look of those GUIs horrible, even more so than OS X Yosemite. Where did the latest GUI designers graduate from? Both OS X and Microsoft look more plain than twenty-five years ago, surely that can't be a coincidence. Are they preparing us to go back to monochrome displays?

    --
    Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
    1. Re:This looks familiar by ArcadeMan · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I don't recall any design from the past 50 years that looked as plain and boring as OS X Yosemite and Windows 8/10.

      --
      Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
    2. Re:This looks familiar by Mr_Wisenheimer · · Score: 3, Insightful

      That's one of the most frustrating things about OSX, is that they try to make it as difficult as possible to actually make meaningful modifications to your system.

      Microsoft isn't quite as libertine as Linux's, "if you don't like our billion options, then compile your own version of KDE or Gnome," (unless you are the US government or another big contract holder with access to MS source code), but it has always been power-user and system-administrator friendly by giving straightforward tools to micro-manage system settings that were just a step or two behind the "friendly" interface.

      We'll see if that changes in Windows 10. I doubt it, but you never know.

    3. Re:This looks familiar by jones_supa · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Me neither. Even the crusty-looking desktops of old UNIX workstations, such as 4DWM or CDE, begin to look professional and attractive when compared to Win10 and Yosemite.

  5. Environment Variables by Rejemy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    As long as they leave intact the ancient, tiny, unresizable Environment Variables window that hasn't been updated since it was first introduced in Windows NT, I'll be happy. Who doesn't like editing a huge path in a tiny 40 character single-line text field?

    1. Re:Environment Variables by neilo_1701D · · Score: 3, Insightful

      You just reminded me about that.

      I looked in my Build 9680. There, in all it's annoying pop-out glory and quite tasteful shadow (but minus any discernible windows border) is the Environmental Variables window in all it's NT 3.1 glory!

    2. Re:Environment Variables by jones_supa · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Guys, this is a perfect opportunity to use the Windows Feedback tool.

  6. Another failure of ZAW!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    For those to young to remember...MicroSoft thought that they could get away with doing away with a whole profession - the systems administrators. They put out this "initative" to get rid of the admins...it was called "ZAW" which stood for Zero Administration for Windows. They alienated a bunch of sys admins...I moved completely to UNIX/Linux....why would I stick around in a technology that was being pushed away.

    As it turns out...the Internet and server administration and desktop administration are too complex to bundled in some stupid little "control panel." This attempt to "merge" functionality will fail as well.

  7. Re:Just keep it off the servers.... by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Prepare for the steering wheel in new cars to work in exactly the opposite way, and for the brake pedal and accelerator to be active when released rather than pressed. Surely you won't get into much trouble on the road now that I've told you about that in advance.

    --
    Ezekiel 23:20
  8. Re:Just keep it off the servers.... by TWX · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Why is there a resource-intensive GUI on a server anyway? Is the server supposed to be able to play Solitaire or World of Warcraft? Or is the server supposed to, oh, I donno, serve files and applications to client stations?

    That's one thing I never understood, why Microsoft went GUI with the servers like they did, other than to know that they sold a lot of server OSes to people that had no business running servers in the first place...

    --
    Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
  9. Re:Just keep it off the servers.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

    Because of Fuckwit lazy ass software developers who drool and draw blanks stares at you when asked where the 'client-only' or 'service-only' piece of their server software is.

    I still have to deal with commercial software that in 20-mother-fucking-14 has to be logged in locally for the 'server' side of the program (that runs in the foreground) so the scheduled tasks setup within the program will run the batch-imports that upload into SQL!

    These servers have to be setup so that when they reboots they auto-logs in and runs a 'shortcut' in the start menu's 'starup' folder (some with the user/password appended to the .exe target) so that nightly imports into their SQL work.

    So A.) They don't have a background service, B.) Can't run scheduled tasks without the foreground program running., oh and C.) If there is any alert message (which pop up for anyone running the GUI client software if it is open) The scheduled tasks and all other batch processes will not run because there is a message on the screen that 'someone' has to click ok to acknowledge.

    And before you start saying this is old 'legacy' software the version we are using (about 5th upgraded one since we got it) was released in August of 20-FUCKING-14!

    These 'programmers'/'developers' can create modern software that can use SQL from 2005 to 2014 (32 or 64bit) but can't figure out how to make a true background service for the server side so it must run the same software the client workstations use to run batch process tasks!

    As much as I swear and yell "Fucking Microsoft" at my systems while working all day, not 'everything' is on their end and a lot more seems to be on the Dumb-ASS so-called 'software developer' side of things meaning as longs as these ass-holes are still cranking out shit that is needed in a fucked-up manner there will always be local administration on server, especially GUI on Windows server. Damn-near every damn server software I deal with states that 'Core' editions are not supported. (and 'web' software that uses IIS states that 'web' editions are not supported so these were and never will be used)

    Headless servers won't be coming to Windows anytime soon.