Windows – Control panel missing from right-click on start menu

control-panelwindowswindows 10

In other windows 10 installations I could see a control panel button when right-clicking on the start menu.

In my current one what I see is this:

start menu right-click

How do I go about adding a control panel button to this menu using only the standard Windows options?

Best Answer

This is what I do:

  • Open Windows Powershell command prompt
  • Paste the following code snippet

This usually does the trick.

$path = "$env:LOCALAPPDATA\Microsoft\Windows\WinX\Group2"
$x = "UEsDBBQAAAAIAEphSkmJ5YBS0QAAAPcDAAARAAAAQ29udHJvbCBQYW5lbC5sbmvzYWBgYBRhYgCBA2CSwa2B
mQEiQAAwovEnAzEnA8MCXSBtGBwQ/Kgrwm2Pj4Xz7j/Ck9Vm5J4ThCkURtIEUxyq4TO/cr6l94oLD6/oPrz6GaRYCK
aYEU1xtW7v74sTTPz2J+St4ZykvR+kmAmm+Og13laY6SLMYM0LVMsz81Iyi1RjiiuLS1JzjY1ikvPzSoryc/RSK1KJ
8eswAKoM5QyZDHkMKUCyCMiLYShmqATiEoZUhlwGYwYjoEgyQz5QRQlQPp8hh0EPKFPBMFLCZyQBAFBLAQIUABQAAA
AIAEphSkmJ5YBS0QAAAPcDAAARAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAABDb250cm9sIFBhbmVsLmxua1BLBQYAAAAAAQABAD8A
AAAAAQAAAAA=".replace("`n","")
[Convert]::FromBase64String($x) | Set-Content $path\temp.zip -Encoding Byte
Expand-Archive $path\temp.zip -DestinationPath $path
Remove-Item $path\temp.zip
Stop-Process -Name Explorer

The gibberish in the $x variable is the base64 encode shortcut file to the Control Panel, which this script writes to the appropriate folder, after which it restarts the Windows Explorer process.

Another advantage of this method, is that I can use this script in automated box building process, etc, that is it does not have to be run interactively.

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