Various things in Windows Settings do not work and Control Panel is blank

So I've had this problem since I installed upgraded from Windows 7 to Windows 10 about this time last year. I've asked here once around then, got no useful responses. I still need this fixed and I still cannot figure it out.

So first of all. Control Panel is entirely blank. I've gone into the Group Policy Editor, selected User Configuration>Administrative Templates>Control Panel and picked "Show only specified Control Panel items" from the right. Inside, if I select "Enable" and then click the "show" button to pick control panel items to display, the list is empty. It's as if I have no control panel items whatsoever. If I open c:\Windows\system32 and find a .cpl item and try to open it, nothing happens. At all. For example, if I double click powercfg.cpl nothing happens. If I do Win+R and type powercfg.cpl, nothing happens.

In the Windows Settings, I can get to Power & Sleep settings, however clicking on Advanced Power Settings does nothing. If I do Win+S and type "power plan" and attempt to select "Edit Power Plan" or "Choose a Power Plan" then nothing happens. A lot of the deeper options in the settings panel just don't work in this same way. Most of the top level things work fine. But navigating too deeply will just result in something not working at all. Although some of the top level stuff doesn't work, either. It's really just random what works and what doesn't it seems.

Now here's one more thing of interest. The Device Manager. This is normally accessible through many, many different ways. The one I'm most used to is Win+Break. That doesn't work. Right clicking the Windows logo on the task bar and selecting Device Manager. That doesn't work. Win+S and typing "device manager" and clicking the result. That doesn't work. Win+I (settings) and typing Device Manager and clicking the result. Doesn't work. Win+R and typing devmgmt.msc. THAT DOES WORK. That's the only way I can get into Device Manager.

So now, trouble shooting steps I've tried. I've already done sfc /scannow and everything is fine. No problems. As I mentioned, I've had this problem from the moment I installed Windows 10 (and it was a clean install on a newly formatted hard drive) and I have it on newly created test accounts as well. I've tried steps laid out here and here       to no avail. At this point, I seem out of options. So what the heck is going on and how do I fix this?

Edited June 24, 20215 yr by darxide
clarification