Enable Hidden Secret Control Panel Items in Windows Vista and Later

Did you know Windows Vista and later 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?

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Using the same trick Microsoft has disabled some items in Control Panel in Windows Vista and later 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 Start Menu 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.

Hidden_Control_Panel_Items.png

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4. You can simply delete the “don’t load” key and all hidden items will be enabled in Control Panel.

PS: Windows 7 and later users! Please read NOTE 1, NOTE 2 and NOTE 3 given at the end of this tutorial before deleting the key.

Enable_Hidden_Control_Panel_Items.png

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 and later, 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 and later 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 or later 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:

Download Registry Script

Published in: Windows 7, Windows Vista

About the author: Vishal Gupta (also known as VG) has been awarded with Microsoft MVP (Most Valuable Professional) award. He holds Masters degree in Computer Applications (MCA). He has written several tech articles for popular newspapers and magazines and has also appeared in tech shows on various TV channels.

Comments

NOTE: Older comments have been removed to reduce database overhead.

  1. In Win8 I try to delete tabletpc.cpl reg entry and the system tells me “unable to delete specified entry.” I took control of the item, but still get this error.

    Any thoughts?

  2. ^^ Make sure you have taken ownership and assigned full control on “don’t load” key to your user account.

  3. it didnt work for me i have windows 8 and when i pulled up regedit it only showed default and nothing else

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