From Start, you access Control Panel by tapping or clicking the Control Panel
tile. From the desktop, you can display Control Panel by accessing the Charms bar, tapping or clicking Settings,
and then tapping or clicking Control Panel. The Control Panel in
Windows Server 2012 has two views:
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Category Control Panel, shown in Figure 4, is the
default view that provides access to system utilities by category,
utility, and key tasks. Category Control Panel view is also referred to
simply as Control Panel.
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Standard Control Panel is an alternate view in which
each Control Panel utility is listed separately by name.
You use the View By option to specify the view you want to use.
Select Category on the View By list to use Category Control Panel. Select Large Icons or Small Icons on the
View By list to use Standard Control Panel.
Because Category Control Panel provides quick access to frequent
tasks, it is the view you typically will use most often. With this
view, Control Panel opens as a console on which categories of
utilities are listed. For each category, there’s a top-level link and
under this are several of the most frequently performed tasks for the
category.
Tap or clicking a category link provides a list of utilities in
that category. For each utility listed within a category, there’s a
link to open the utility, and under this are several of the most
frequently performed tasks for the utility.
In Category Control Panel view, all utilities and tasks run
with a single tap or click. The left pane of the console has a link to
take you to the Control Panel Home page, links for each category, and
links for recently performed tasks. Not only is this very efficient,
but it’s very easy to use.
As you might already know, some Control Panel utilities offer a
simple interface and are easy to work with, while others are fairly
complex. Utilities that require little or no explanation are not
discussed in this text; you will find a discussion of some of the more
complex utilities later in this section.
Tip
When you are working with Category Control Panel view, you’ll
see a Search box in the upper right corner. To quickly find what you
are looking for, type in part of the tool or task name. Consider the
following example: Normally, you access the Change The Display
Setting task under Control Panel\Appearance\Display (or Control
Panel\Appearance And Personalization\Personalization if Desktop
Experience is installed), which requires you to navigate through
several Control Panel pages. If you type display in the Search box instead, you can
quickly display this task and tap or click it.
Keep in mind that you don’t have to open Control Panel to
search for and find its settings. By accessing the Charms bar,
tapping or clicking Search, and then tapping or clicking Settings,
you can quickly search for and find settings in Control Panel.
Using the Folder Options utility
The Folder Options utility, shown in Figure 5, is used to
control how File Explorer displays files and folders and to set a
wide variety of folder and file options, including the type of
desktop used, the folder views used, whether offline files are used, and
whether you must single-click/single-tap or double-click/double-tap
to open items.
In Control Panel, you can access the Folder Options utility by tapping or clicking
Appearance (or Appearance And Personalization if Desktop Experience
is installed), and then tapping or clicking Folder Options. As an
administrator, you will probably want to manage the following
options:
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Single-Click To Open An Item (Point
To Select) Select this option on the General tab to
enable single-click/single-tap to open and point to
select.
Note
Because menu options and Control Panel options open with a single
click/single tap by default, you might want to configure your
computer to use single-click to open items such as documents
as well. This might help you avoid confusion as to whether you
need to tap or click once or tap or click twice. When you have
the single-click option configured, pointing to an item
selects it.
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Show Hidden Files, Folders, And
Drives Select this option on the View tab to see hidden
files, folders, and drives.
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Hide Extensions For Known File
Types Clear this check box on the View tab to see file
names as well as file extensions.
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Hide Protected Operating System
Files Clear this check box on the View tab so that you
can see and work with operating system files, which are
otherwise hidden.
