Add Control Panel to Context Menu & Create Cascading Options in Windows

To revert any changes to your Windows, Control Panel is the first and foremost way. You can configure your Windows according to your need by changing the settings for different settings under the hood of Control Panel. Today, in this article, I’ll show you how you can access Control Panel straight from Desktop context menu in Windows 11/10.

Add Control Panel to Desktop Context Menu

Now here is the how-to part. The trick just requires the basic knowledge of Registry Editor such as creating, editing, etc. of registry keys. So here we go!

Add Control Panel to context menu & create a cascading menu

1. Press Windows Key + R combination, type put Regedt32.exe in Run dialog box and hit Enter to open the Registry Editor.

2. Navigate here:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\DesktopBackground\Shell

3. In the left pane of this location, create a subkey using Right Click -> New -> Key. Name it as ControlPanel. Moving on, in the right pane of this newly created subkey, create three strings with corresponding data:

• MUIVerb: Control Panel
• SubCommands: CP-Category;CP-Icons;|;CP-AllSettings;CP-AllTasks
• Icon:  imageres.dll,-27

Add Cascade Options

4. Now head on to the following location:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\CommandStore\shell

5. In the left pane of this location, create a subkey using Right Click -> New -> Key. Name it as CP-AllSettings. It will automatically create a Default string in the right pane, and modify its Value data by All Settings. Now in the right pane of this location, create a string Icon with Value data as imageres.dll,-27.

Follow this procedure, to create three more subkeys in the same location. Firstly name them as CP-Icons, CP-Category, CP-AllTasks. (See Screenshot)

Now modify Default strings of these so created subkeys by following Value data:

• CP-Icons : Icons View
• CP-Category : Category View
• CP-AllTasks : All Tasks

Finally, create a string Icon with Value data as imageres.dll,-27 in the right pane of each subkey independently.

6. Next, create the subkey of the key created in the step 5 i.e. CP-AllSettings using the same procedure. Name it as command. In the right pane of command, edit the Value data of Default string to:

 explorer.exe shell:::{F90C627B-7280-45DB-BC26-CCE7BDD620A4}

Similarly create subkeys of the subkeys create in step 5, i.e. CP-Icons, CP-Category, CP-AllTasks, and name them as command each.

In the right pane for each command subkey created, use the following data:

For the subkey command of CP-Icons, edit the Default string in the right pane to

explorer.exe shell:::{21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D}

For the subkey command of CP-Category, edit the Default string in the right pane to

explorer.exe shell:::{26EE0668-A00A-44D7-9371-BEB064C98683}

For the subkey command of CP-AllTasks, edit the Default string in the right pane to

explorer.exe shell:::{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}

To save your time, we’ve created a ready-made registry file to added the Control Panel option to context menu in a few clicks. You can download it HERE.

That’s it. Now press Windows Key + D to access Desktop and then right-click, and get access to Control Panel.

Also read:

• How to pin Control Panel to Start Menu or Taskbar
• How to create Shortcut to Control Panel items