Did you know Windows Vista and 7 hide some important items in Control Panel from you? Surprised? Lets talk in details!
Actually Windows allows you to show or hide specific items in Control Panel using simple registry trick which is described in details in following tutorial:
How to Hide / Show Specific Control Panel Applets / Icons in Windows?
Using the same trick Microsoft has disabled some items in Control Panel in Windows Vista and 7 for no reason. Really, those hidden items are useful and might be very important for some users but for some unknown reason, those are hidden by default.
Today in this tutorial, we'll tell you how to enable those hidden items in Control Panel so that you can access them whenever you want.
1. Type regedit in RUN or Startmenu Search box and press Enter. It'll open Registry Editor.
2. Now go to following key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Control Panel\don't load
3. The above mentioned key contains some .CPL entries in right-side pane which makes them hidden in Control Panel.
4. You can simply delete the "don't load" key and all hidden items will be enabled in Control Panel.
PS: Windows 7 users! Please read NOTE 1, NOTE 2 and NOTE 3 given at the end of this tutorial before deleting the key.
As you can see in the above screenshot, the items pointed in dark were hidden by default but now they are enabled using this registry trick.
NOTE 1: If you delete the whole "don't load" key in Windows 7, you might get some duplicate items in Control Panel e.g., you'll get 2 Keyboard, 2 Mouse, 2 Sound entries in Control Panel. To fix this issue, don't delete the whole key, instead only delete following entries from right-side pane:
hdwwiz.cpl
appwiz.cpl
ncpa.cpl
sysdm.cpl
desk.cpl
joy.cpl
Firewall.cpl
collab.cpl
irprops.cpl
tabletpc.cpl
bthprops.cpl
infocardcpl.cpl
NOTE 2: Windows Vista allows you to delete the registry key but Windows 7 will not allow you. You'll need to take permission on the key before deleting it. You can use following simple steps to take permission:
[Guide] How to Take Ownership (Permission) of a Registry Key in Windows?
NOTE 3: If by any chance you deleted the whole "don't load" key in Windows 7 and getting duplicate items in Control Panel, you can download following ZIP file, extract it and run the extracted .REG file. It'll fix the issue and you'll no longer get duplicate items:
This article was posted by VG in following section: Windows 7, Windows Vista.
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trm96
Not sure I like changing the owner. It's times like this when I really wish i could run a command like this:
sudo chown brett HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Control Panel\don't load | chmod 666 HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Control Panel\don't load |chown root HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Control Panel\don't load
Joji
Testing testing... testing if I can comment again...
~Joji~
Joji
Woot woot! I though VG hated me and blocked me from commenting! D:
I couldn't comment for a while and my comments were deleted all the time! :'(
~Joji~
Joji
*thought
Poma
And if we do get duplicates, how do we get rid if them?
Nemesis
The guidance provided is conflicting. In Windows 7 you say delete the key and all should be well? Further down in the post you have this. NOTE: If you delete the whole "don't load" key in Windows 7, you might get some duplicate items in Control Panel e.g., you'll get 2 Keyboard, 2 Mouse, 2 Sound entries in Control Panel. To fix this issue, don't delete the whole key, instead only delete following entries from right-side pane. This is very confusing. Doesn't seem like this was thoroughly thought out? The process for removing the duplicates seems to be time consuming is this registry fix worth that much time? I would just like to clarify before I do or don't complete the registry edit.
saurav debnath
ayo i deleted my DoNotUnload folder i need help how to get it back
Alex
Joji lol You're Funnie bro
Darshit
The so-called hidden control panel applets were always visible on my machine which came pre-installed with Windows Vista
mgiardino
For those of you who wish they could undelete what they have delete and realized they could not. I ask you, why did you not make a backup of this key you deleted BEFORE deletion?
Just a thought.