Last week, Microsoft mentioned in a support document that it was formally deprecating Windows’ 39-year-old Control Panel applets. But following widespread reporting of the change, Microsoft has either backtracked or clarified its language to remove the note about Control Panel being deprecated in favor of the Settings app. Here’s what the original post said, as also preserved by the Internet Wayback Machine (emphasis ours):

“The Control Panel is a feature that’s been part of Windows for a long time. It provides a centralized location to view and manipulate system settings and controls,” the support page explains. “Through a series of applets, you can adjust various options ranging from system time and date to hardware settings, network configurations, and more. The Control Panel is in the process of being deprecated in favor of the Settings app, which offers a more modern and streamlined experience.

The current version of the page has changed that last sentence considerably. It now says that “many of the settings in Control Panel are in the process of being migrated to the Settings app, which offers a more modern and streamlined experience.

It’s not clear whether this reflects a policy change or just a clarification of language. We’ve asked Microsoft whether it has changed plans to deprecate the Control Pane or if the original version of the support page was just incorrect in the first place, and we’ll update if we receive a response.

  • schizo@forum.uncomfortable.business
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    13
    ·
    4 months ago

    It really feels like it shouldn’t be THAT hard of a thing to do: I mean shit, we’re 4 major releases into this, and they somehow managed to put all the features in the original control panel in uh, one release.

    • SkaveRat@discuss.tchncs.de
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      17
      ·
      4 months ago

      you need to keep in mind that microsoft is a small business, so they don’t have a lot of resorces to assign to this

      • floofloof@lemmy.ca
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        13
        ·
        edit-2
        4 months ago

        You need to keep in mind that Microsoft developers are only allowed to do what the marketing department wants to sell. Unglamorous fixes and improvements are left untouched for years or decades.

        • ForgotAboutDre@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          3
          ·
          4 months ago

          It will be driven my minimal viable product and running to a release at the end of every x sprints.

          They don’t have the time or structure to build long term plans and well considered features.

      • schizo@forum.uncomfortable.business
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        7
        ·
        4 months ago

        Honestly I’m waiting for Settings AI now with CoPilot which changes your configuration based on what you’re doing, and only sometimes does stupid shit that you have to stop and sort out.

        And then they’d have 3 control panel apps.

      • schizo@forum.uncomfortable.business
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        10
        ·
        4 months ago

        True, I was forgetting about the Shareholder Value™.

        Which is silly of me, because it’s basically the only innovative thing Microsoft has done in the last oh, 20 years?