Control Your Control Panel

(NOTE - This tip is probably best suited for intermediate to advanced users.)

Do you ever get "extra" little icons on your control panel from other programs (especially utilities)? You may have noticed that they don't delete all that easily. There is a way around that. Windows gets these icons from CPL files that reside in its System directory. Here's how to remove those unwanted icons by re-naming CPL files:

First, you'll need to have your computer set to view file extensions. If it's not, right-click your Start button, hit Explore. When Windows Explorer opens, hit the View menu, Folder Options. From the View tab, uncheck the "Hide file extensions for known file types" box. Hit OK and exit Explorer.

In this example, the Control Panel item we'll get rid of is FindFast (it's an old Office 97 utility). The following is a screenshot of control panel with the icon in it:

1. Click the Start button and select Find, Files or Folders

2. In the Named field type:
*.cpl

3. From the "look in" drop down box, select drive C: (or whatever drive letter on which your copy of Windows is installed).

4. Hit the "Find now" button. You should get a list of CPL files. Now, you'll have to try to figure out which one is which, but they usually correspond to the name of the utility in question.

5. Once you find the one(s) you want to remove, right-click it and re-name the extension:
.cpx (you may want to write down the file name in case it not the right one)

Here's the FindFast file re-named:

Now here's a screenshot of Control Panel, now minus FindFast:

Why not just delete the CPL files? You can, but if you delete the wrong one, you may have to re-install Windows to get it back (or at the very least dig through your recycle bin). Re-naming is much safer since you can always undo your re-naming.

If the icon did not go, you probably re-named the wrong CPL file, which is why it's safer to rename them.  You can always delete the renamed file once you are certain you chose the correct icon.