In Windows 11, Microsoft is finally announcing the death of the traditional Control Panel. Microsoft made a number of modifications to Windows 11’s Settings area earlier this year, and the firm has begun testing even additional methods to replace Control Panel functions this month.

Microsoft has placed advanced network settings onto a new tab in the Settings app in new beta versions of Windows 11, which includes sharing options for files, printers, and network discovery choices. Instead of pushing you into the Control Panel, several entry points to network and device settings in Windows 11 now redirect to the Settings app.

Links to the portion of the Control Panel used to remove programs have been redirected to the Settings app in other places. Instead of being placed in the Control Panel, the area for removing Windows Updates is now part of the Settings app.

These recent modifications are excellent, and they follow initiatives in Windows 10 to shift away from the Control Panel. In Windows 8, Microsoft launched a new Settings app as a method to replace the old Control Panel. For historical support reasons, the two have coexisted, just as Microsoft had two browsers (Internet Explorer and Microsoft Edge) under Windows 10.

Although the Settings app was created to be a new broom that sweeps the floor clean, there are still many settings that require you to go into the Control Panel. Windows 10 made improvements, and Windows 11 offers an even more contemporary approach to PC control.

These recent modifications are part of Microsoft’s “ongoing endeavor to integrate settings from Control Panel into the Settings app.” So it’s evident that Microsoft wants to tidy up this part of Windows and eventually make the Control Panel obsolete.

Windows 11 is mostly a modernization and simplification effort for a Windows operating system that has been used in the same way for decades. Microsoft didn’t go far enough with the Control Panel in the original version of Windows 11, but it simplified things far too much in other places, such as the taskbar. These monthly updates allow Microsoft to complete what has so far seemed like an incomplete version of Windows.