48 replies to this topic

[+warwagon]

Do you use category view in the control panel?

[Dot Matrix]

Yes. It presents a cleaner window, and easier to navigate UI. The "barf view", where everything is just thrown together and left to rot, just got too cumbersome to use.

[firey]

Nope, if I leave it in category, half the time I can't find what I am looking for.

[+warwagon]

On every machine, category view is the first thing to go. I find it totally worthless. My feeling is "Please don't hide stuff from me, I want to see everything"

[lcg]

Yes. I got used to using the category view in Windows XP and prefer it to the classic view.

[~Johnny]

Dislike it.

[Shane Nokes]

Depends on what I'm doing. I find category view better for some stuff, and the old 'flat' view better for other things. So I switch depending on what I'm doing.

[Charisma]

Nah, I know where things are and category view just mucks it up. What's hard about alphabetical order?

[Obi-Wan Kenobi]

I've never used it. Do not like it at all, but it's good for simple stuff, like Shane said. I leave it in category view for my parents' machine, and they have no trouble using it that way. They're older too, though, and they're technologically challenged, so to speak. If they get any kind of error message at all they freak out and don't know what to do, so they call me, lol.

[Max Norris]

Don't think I've ever used the category view. Or even the control panel itself as a whole for that matter. Been accessing whatever component I needed at the time via the start menu directly since at least XP, some of the more common ones I've also added as a context menu to the computer desktop icon. In 8 have them all pinned in their own group on the start screen. Same for administrative tools.

[Darrian]

Hell no, it's one of the first thing I change after I set up Windows. What a worthless pain in the ass. I can't believe they kept that but got rid of sidebar gadgets.

[Javik]

Nope, category view annoys me. I select "Display as menu" so I can open control panel apps from the start menu without the extra clicks.

[Ambroos]

I usually just search for what I need in the start menu, otherwise I use category view, always. It's so, so much easier and faster to find things. That huge heap of tiny applets is horrible if you can't remember the exact name.

Especially since the column flow is ridiculous. Instead of going from top to bottom then from left to right they first go from left to right then from top to bottom. CONSISTENCY PLS MS.

[Simon-]

I try to, unless I give up in frustration, more and more however I use the Windows 7 Start menu search to go to the exact control panel item because that is well indexed of all the things you can do in the control panel. Windows 8 is much more of a pain, not just finding the control panel for Desktop, but the search doesn't find anything as you type, you have to complete what you are typing for the search, then manually take control of the mouse and click 'settings' and then click what you want.

[Dashel]

On XP no, Vista and later absolutely.