Add Control Panel to Desktop Context Menu

Now here is the how-to part. The trick just requires the basic knowledge of Registry Editor such as creating, editing, etc. of registry keys. So here we go!

Add Control Panel to context menu & create a cascading menu

  1. Press Windows Key + R combination, type put Regedt32.exe in Run dialog box and hit Enter to open the Registry Editor.

  2. Navigate here:

  3. In the left pane of this location, create a subkey using Right Click -> New -> Key. Name it as ControlPanel. Moving on, in the right pane of this newly created subkey, create three strings with corresponding data:

MUIVerb: Control PanelSubCommands: CP-Category;CP-Icons;|;CP-AllSettings;CP-AllTasksIcon:  imageres.dll,-27

Add Cascade Options

  1. Now head on to the following location:

  2. In the left pane of this location, create a subkey using Right Click -> New -> Key. Name it as CP-AllSettings. It will automatically create a Default string in the right pane, modify its Value data by All Settings. Now in the right pane of this location, create a string Icon with Value data as imageres.dll,-27. Follow this procedure, to create three more subkeys in the same location. Firstly name them as CP-Icons, CP-Category, CP-AllTasks. (See Screenshot)

Now modify Default strings of these so created subkeys by following Value data:

CP-Icons : Icons ViewCP-Category : Category ViewCP-AllTasks : All Tasks

Finally, create a string Icon with Value data as imageres.dll,-27 in the right pane of each subkey independently. 6. Next, create the subkey of the key created in the step 5 i.e. CP-AllSettings using the same procedure. Name it as command. In the right pane of command, edit the Value data of Default string to: Similarly create subkeys of the subkeys create in step 5, i.e. CP-Icons, CP-Category, CP-AllTasks, and name them as command each. In the right pane for each command subkey created, use the following data: For the subkey command of CP-Icons, edit the Default string in the right pane to For the subkey command of CP-Category, edit the Default string in the right pane to For the subkey command of CP-AllTasks, edit the Default string in the right pane to To save your time, we’ve created a ready-made registry file to added the Control Panel option to context menu in a few clicks. You can download it HERE. That’s it. Now press Windows Key + D to access Desktop and then right-click, and get access to Control Panel.