Home windows 11 has its fair proportion of annoyances, however nothing bugs me greater than looking for particular system settings. Microsoft has been making an attempt to section out the Management Panel for over a decade, pushing every little thing into the brand new Settings app. Nonetheless, the migration remains to be a piece in progress. Some choices reside in Settings, whereas others conceal in Management Panel, and also you by no means know the place to look.
As an alternative of continually switching between these two interfaces, I began utilizing God Mode, a hidden Home windows characteristic that places all Management Panel choices in a single searchable folder. It has been round since Home windows Vista, and whereas it would not clear up each Settings app drawback, it makes coping with superior choices approach much less irritating.
Why the Home windows 11 Settings app feels damaged
The cut up persona drawback
The Home windows 11 Settings app has loads of quirks past simply the interface cut up. It is laggy when switching between sections, and easy duties like creating an area account are unnecessarily tedious. It is buried beneath the Different customers part, as if Microsoft desires everybody to overlook they’ll create an area person account.
However the true drawback is architectural: the app remains to be a piece in progress after a decade. This implies many superior settings, like including a second time zone to your taskbar or modifying setting variables, will ship you again to the Management Panel.
To be truthful, Microsoft cannot kill the Management Panel completely, even when it desires to. Too many enterprise instruments, legacy functions, and system directors depend upon these previous interfaces working as they’ve for many years. However this creates an actual drawback for everybody else. You find yourself with settings scattered throughout two utterly completely different interfaces (generally with completely different names for a similar merchandise).
The trendy Settings app does look cleaner, and it really works superb for primary duties like connecting to Wi-Fi or altering your wallpaper. However the second you want something past surface-level changes, you are bouncing between two utterly completely different experiences—one with trendy toggles and playing cards, the opposite with old-school lists and dialog packing containers straight out of Home windows 7.
What God Mode truly does
A shortcut to every little thing in Management Panel
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God Mode (clearly an exaggerated time period; its official identify is Home windows Grasp Management Panel shortcut) is a particular folder that Microsoft constructed into Home windows. It incorporates shortcuts to each single Management Panel setting—over 200 choices—organized in a single searchable record. Open it, and you will see system settings grouped into logical classes that you could broaden, search by way of, and discover what you are in search of.
The characteristic has existed since Home windows Vista, although Microsoft has by no means formally promoted it. The identify “God Mode” was coined by Home windows fanatics again within the Vista period, maybe as a result of having all these settings in a single place felt surprisingly highly effective in comparison with digging by way of the Management Panel’s layers of choices.
What makes God Mode helpful in Home windows 11 is not that it fixes the Settings app—it would not contact trendy Settings pages in any respect. As an alternative, it provides you instantaneous entry to all of the Management Panel instruments you will inevitably want when the Settings app falls brief. Moderately than looking by way of the Management Panel’s classes or remembering which Settings web page may redirect you there, you get a simple record of every little thing the Management Panel gives.
The way to allow God Mode in Home windows 11
Proper-click, rename, and also you’re completed
Activating God Mode is rather a lot much less intimidating than the identify suggests. Proper-click in your desktop and select New > Folder. Then rename that folder to this particular string (you may copy and paste):
GodMode.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}
Hit Enter, and the folder icon will change to seem like the previous Management Panel icon. Now double-click the folder, and you will find every little thing from AutoPlay settings to Consumer Account Controls, backup choices, and colour administration. Every class expands to indicate particular duties you may carry out.
You possibly can even drag particular person settings from God Mode onto your desktop or taskbar to create one-click shortcuts to the choices you utilize often.
Why God Mode makes Home windows 11 settings much less painful
No extra Management Panel looking
Tashreef Shareef / MakeUseOf
Tashreef Shareef / MakeUseOf
God Mode is not a alternative for the Settings app, however it’s a a lot quicker strategy to entry the superior choices you really need. When the Settings app inevitably kicks you to Management Panel, you will know precisely the place to go.
As an illustration, all energy settings reside beneath Energy Choices in God Mode. I can change battery conduct, select what closing the lid does, or regulate what the facility button does. And it is all potential with out navigating by way of Management Panel’s All Management Panel Objects or bouncing between System > Energy & battery in Settings when it would not have what I would like.
It additionally provides fast entry to BitLocker encryption, community troubleshooting instruments, Consumer Account Management settings, and file affiliation choices. There are 200+ Management Panel gadgets, all accessible from a single searchable folder with logical categorization that is simpler to know.
Consider it because the Management Panel with higher UX
Whether or not you are a long-time Home windows person who misses the previous methods or somebody bored with the Settings app’s limitations, God Mode makes the inevitable Management Panel journeys much less irritating. You possibly can even drag your most-used settings straight to the desktop for fast entry.
God Mode will not be round endlessly—as Microsoft continues transferring every little thing to the Settings app, this workaround will finally turn into out of date. However proper now, whereas Home windows 11’s settings stay scattered throughout two interfaces, it is a sensible workaround that saves time and a bit of frustration.
