Last week, Microsoft seemed to confirm that it was doing away with the Control Panel and batoning it to the Settings app However, it may not be that simple

The announcement initially claimed that “the Control Panel is in the process of being deprecated in favor of the Settings app, which provides a more modern and streamlined experience Deprecated” meant that certain features would be frozen and removed However, the situation has since changed (via Ars Technica)

Now, “Many of the settings in the Control Panel are in the process of being migrated to the Settings app, which provides a more modern and streamlined experience It is not entirely clear why the wording was changed, but it does suggest that the Control Panel will be around for a little while longer However, it is not yet clear how long it will remain in existence

There is no doubt that Microsoft plans to have the role of the control panel be taken over by the Settings app in the future That has been a long time coming, and this language suggests that this process will continue for the foreseeable future However, it is still unclear why Microsoft is changing course in this way Rumors of attempts to do away with the control panel in the past have been controversial, and Microsoft should have foreseen the backlash to the new announcement

However, this could have been a simple mistake, as the Control Panel has never been listed on the official list of deprecated features in Windows 10 or 11 After all, the support page is not the appropriate place for this type of announcement Even if it is an announcement that one knows will eventually happen

So, as has been the case for the past 12 years, we can expect to see the Control Panel gradually lose functionality and more features added to the Settings menu And once that process is complete, the Control Panel will disappear for good

But who knows when that will be? By then, we may be talking about using Windows 12