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winapicontrolpanel

How to programmatically open control panel?

How do I open a custom control panel programmatically, like custom.cpl? Specifically, how do I open a 64-bit cpl when running as 32-bit application?

Solution

  • Vista added support for canonical names so you don't have to hard code dll filenames and tab indexs

    Example: WinExec("%systemroot%\system32\control.exe /name Microsoft.WindowsUpdate", SW_NORMAL);

    (Names are always in english)

    See MSDN for a list

    XP/2000 supports "control.exe mouse" and a few other keywords, see the same MSDN page for a list (You can probably find some undocumented ones by running strings on control.exe)