Deleting a Control Panel Icon
Q: I mistakenly downloaded and tried to run a Japanese utility on my English Windows 95. The installation worked fine, but my attempt to uninstall left some Japanese remnants. One item that I cannot remove, even manually, is the utility's icon that somehow found its way into my Control Panel. It seems to be impossible to delete an icon from the Control Panel. Do you know how?
A: Yes. Each tool (icon) in the Control Panel window has an associated .cpl file that is automatically loaded when you start Control Panel. So to get rid of your unwanted icon, the trick is to identify and delete the corresponding .cpl file. To help you narrow down the list of suspects, the box at the right lists the most common Win95 .cpl files. You'll find these Control Panel .cpl files in your Windows 95 System folder.
Third-party software and hardware installation may add a .cpl file (and thus an icon in Control Panel) to provide a convenient interface for setting the product's configuration options. Unfortunately, such programs don't always provide an uninstall function, or don't do a thorough job of uninstalling themselves, as you've discovered.
So, to get rid of that unwelcome Control Panel icon, search your Win95 System folder for the .cpl file that seems to correspond to the icon. To play it safe, instead of immediately deleting the suspect file, just give it another name, such as by replacing the .cpl extension with an .xxx extension.
Next, shut down Win95 and restart your computer. Open the Control Panel and, if the unwanted icon is gone, your problem is solved, and it's safe to go back and delete the .xxx file. If you've made a mistake, and the wrong icon is gone, you can rename the .xxx file with its proper .cpl extension and try again. (To make things a bit confusing, note that some Control Panel files can be loaded via the [MMCPL] section of Win95's Control.ini file. If your search for a troublesome .cpl file isn't successful, check the [MMCPL] section of Control.ini and deal with any troublesome line as appropriate.)
Since we're discussing the Control Panel and Control.ini, let's take things a step further. Suppose that you don't want to completely delete an icon and its underlying file(s), but simply want to hide a specific Control Panel tool. For example, maybe you want to disable your system's Password properties tool as an added measure of protection from casual mischief -- but you still will want to be able access it yourself if required.
To temporarily disable and hide (but not delete) a particular Control Panel tool, first save a copy of the current Control.ini file in your Windows folder (as a backup in case of screwup) under a different name, such as Control.bak. This will enable you to recover to the previous configuration should the need arise.
After making your backup, use a text editor (such as Notepad) to open the Control.ini file. Search the file for the [don't load] section (and, if there isn't one, create it). Then, in this section, for each tool that you want to disable, specify <icon>=no, where <icon> is the corresponding .cpl file name. So, to disable the password option, you would insert this line: password.cpl=no
Do this for each tool you want to disable, then save the Control.ini file and quit your editor. Now, shut down Windows, and restart your computer. When you next open Control Panel, the Password (or whatever other icon(s) you have specified under [don't load]) will be hidden. To get it back, simply go back into the Control.ini file to delete the corresponding [don't load] line, then restart your computer.
| Common Control Panel files | |||
| File name | Function | ||
| Access.cpl | Accessibility options | ||
| Appwiz.cpl | Add/remove programs | ||
| Desk.cpl | Display properties | ||
| FindFast.cpl | FindFast (MS-Office) | ||
| Inetcpl.cpl | Internet properties | ||
| Intl.cpl | Regional properties | ||
| Joy.cpl | Joystick properties | ||
| Main.cpl | Mouse properties | ||
| Mlcfg32.cpl | MS-Exchange services | ||
| Mmsys.cpl | Multimedia properties | ||
| Modem.cpl | Modem properties | ||
| Netcpl.cpl | Network properties | ||
| Obdccp32.cpl | 32-bit ODBC | ||
| Password.cpl | Password properties | ||
| Sysdm.cpl | System properties/ | ||
| add hardware | |||
| Themes.cpl | Plus! Desktop themes | ||
| TimeDate.cpl | Date/time properties | ||
