If you find yourself using the Control Panel regularly, it might prove beneficial to add it to the "This PC" section of Windows File Explorer. Of course, it’s easy enough to find these days -- just a simple right click on the Start menu -- but, the Control Panel of old is still around and just as important as ever. With a simple registry hack, you can put it wherever you’d like, but today we’ll focus on adding it to the “This PC” section of Windows File Explorer.
1. Open the Registry Editor by clicking the Start button and typing “regedit.”
2. Hit Enter, or click the appropriate match in the Best match section.
3. Click the Yes button to allow Registry Editor to make changes to your device.
4. Navigate to the following key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\MyComputer\NameSpace
5. From here, we’re going to create a new key inside the NameSpace key. Right-click the NameSpace key and choose New > Key.
6. Depending on the name we give the key, Control panel can open in either category view or icon view. Right click the New Key and name it one of the following:
For category view, name it: {26EE0668-A00A-44D7-9371-BEB064C98683}
For icon view: {21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D}
