add item to Control Panel

[Asp]

Somehow the Device Manager isn't showing in my Control Panel.

I can make an icon for it on the desktop, using %windir%\system32\devmgmt.msc

But can't see how to add that, or any other widget, to the control panel. "Paste" is greyed out on the edit menu.

How do I do that?

 

[j7n]

Was Device Manager ever part of the control panel directly? I think it was always called up from "System", properties of "My Computer" or Administrative Tools, which can be added as a directory to the control panel.

[Asp]

OK. Guess I was misremembering. It seems an obvious place to have it though.

Even though it's not default, is there a way to add items to the Control Panel?

Some gadgets have added their own panels when I installed their drivers, so contents are not fixed.

Edited October 22 by Asp

[ED_Sln]

On 10/22/2024 at 8:00 AM, Asp said:

Even though it's not default, is there a way to add items to the Control Panel?

Each item in the Control Panel is a cpl file, it is most like a dll, so it is not easy to make a new item. Add Device Manager to the context menu of My Computer, it will be even easier to open it.

[George King]

Control Panel items can be added using registry tweak. 

[Outbreaker]

:: Adds Device Manager to the Control Panel.
::Reg Add "HKCR\CLSID\{74246BFC-4C96-11D0-ABEF-0020AF6B0B7A}" /ve /t REG_SZ /d "Device Manager" /f 1>NUL
Reg Add "HKCR\CLSID\{74246BFC-4C96-11D0-ABEF-0020AF6B0B7A}" /v "{305CA226-D286-468e-B848-2B2E8E697B74} 2" /t REG_SZ /d "5" /f 1>NUL
Reg Add "HKCR\CLSID\{74246BFC-4C96-11D0-ABEF-0020AF6B0B7A}" /v "InfoTip" /t REG_SZ /d "The Device Manager list all the hardware devices installed on your computer." /f 1>NUL
Reg Add "HKCR\CLSID\{74246BFC-4C96-11D0-ABEF-0020AF6B0B7A}\DefaultIcon" /ve /t REG_EXPAND_SZ /d "%%SystemRoot%%\system32\\devmgr.dll,3" /f 1>NUL
Reg Add "HKCR\CLSID\{74246BFC-4C96-11D0-ABEF-0020AF6B0B7A}\Shell\Open\Command" /ve /t REG_EXPAND_SZ /d "\"%%SystemRoot%%\system32\mmc.exe\" \"%%SystemRoot%%\system32\devmgmt.msc\"" /f 1>NUL
Reg Add "HKCR\CLSID\{74246BFC-4C96-11D0-ABEF-0020AF6B0B7A}\ShellFolder" /v "Attributes" /t REG_DWORD /d "0x0" /f 1>NUL
Reg Add "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\ControlPanel\NameSpace\{74246BFC-4C96-11D0-ABEF-0020AF6B0B7A}" /ve /t REG_SZ /d "Device Manager" /f 1>NUL

 

Edited October 24 by Outbreaker

[egrabrych]

You may be interested in the YourCPL program, which is no longer available today, by Ian Sharpe: http://web.archive.org/web/20130805005857/http://www.atrandom.iansharpe.com/yourcpl.php Unfortunately, the download link is no longer active; fortunately, I have the file yourcpl_1_2.zip and I am sending it to you privately.

[Asp]

On 11/8/2024 at 9:03 PM, egrabrych said:

You may be interested in the YourCPL program

Thanks. Tried it, and it worked for things like notepad.exe.

By when I tried :

c:\Windows\System32\devmgmt.msc	Device Manager	  

It showed the icon in the Control Panel, but clicking on it did not do anything. But the icon caption, is empty, despite it being in the config file (following the executable) so it seems that it parses to "exe".  All the examples were exe programs, so seems it just does not work with .msc.

 

PS: found a work around.

I made a batch file devmgmt.bat  that just contains

c:\Windows\System32\devmgmt.msc

and in YourCPLConfig.txt

c:\Windows\System32\devmgmt.bat	Device Manager

So now I do have an icon (a batch  cogwheel though) that launches Device Manager.

 

Edited November 9 by Asp