What just happened? The Control Panel has been an essential component of Microsoft Windows for decades, and was originally introduced in Windows 1.0 in the mid-80s. However, its days are numbered ...

The Control panel feature has been around since the beginning, being available in the Windows 1.0 release in 1985.

Since the debut of Windows 8 in 2012, Microsoft has been eager to replace the aged Control Panel with the newer Settings app. The transition so far has been slow and gradual.