I have Windows XP SP2 (actually Media Center 2005) and noticed a strange
thing recently. I like to view the Control Panel in Category View, and when
I go to the CP and select "Other Control Panel Options" from the left-hand
navigation area, my next screen shows a clean slate where a bunch of icons
used to live. I know hat the .cpl applets are installed since they are all
still there in my Windows folder, and the strangest thing is that if I
switch to Classic View, every single one of the missing programs is still
there, still selectable, still runnable and all function perfectly fine. If
I switch back to Category View - icons all gone!

 

I have used tweak programs like TweakUI to unselect ALL the .cpl applets
from being displayed (in the classic view, of course) and then re-booted,
reselected etc to see if I could "force" them "on" but to no avail.

 

I can find Google or other MS references that allow the entire Control Panel
to be restricted in access, but that is not the issue here. Everything works
fine in Classic View and everything else (that I can notice) works fine in
Category View EXCEPT the "other control panel options" whose icons have all
gone AWOL.

 

There is a sporadically appearing advisory that shows up sometimes but
disappears so quickly that I cannot possibly even read it, but I am pretty
sure that it is warning me that the options are not available due to some
administrator restriction. That's not true since there is no restriction
that I have imposed, I AM the administrator, and in fact if I log on as
Administrator specifically, the same disappearance act has happened. It is
reminiscent of a 'desktop.ini' kind of issue, but for the life of me I don't
know what configuration setting file might be used to control icon
appearance in a control panel sub-menu.

 

Any help from anyone greatly appreciated. It is clearly not critical since I
have the classic view workaround, but it is very annoying :-)

 

Michael


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