The Windows Control Panel being “deprecated” isn’t news

Virtually every tech media outlet has been reporting that Microsoft is deprecating the Control Panel in Windows as if that’s some sort of big revelation we should be outraged about. They’re basing this on the following, now changed, paragraph someone found buried deep in a Windows support site somewhere:

The Control Panel is a feature that’s been part of Windows for a long time. It provides a centralized location to view and manipulate system settings and controls. Through a series of applets, you can adjust various options ranging from system time and date to hardware settings, network configurations, and more. The Control Panel is in the process of being deprecated in favor of the Settings app, which offers a more modern and streamlined experience.
↫ Windows support website

It seems the sudden avalanche of articles about this spooked Microsoft, because when you open the same website now, that last line instead reads:

Many of the settings in Control Panel are in the process of being migrated to the Settings app, which offers a more modern and streamlined experience.
↫ Windows support website

The idea that the Control Panel is being “deprecated” is not exactly a new one; it’s been an ongoing process since the release of Windows 8, twelve years ago now. With every new Windows release, more Control Panel applets are removed in favour of expanding the Settings application, to a point where few regular users have a need to open it directly. Settings still does rely on old Control Panel applets, though, and it won’t take you many clicks through Settings to end up at a classic applet. So, while directly opening the Control Panel might not be a common thing people do, using classic applets sure is.

Microsoft may be changing the verbiage of its support page to remove the word “deprecated”, but that ain’t fooling anyone: the Control Panel has already been gutted beyond recognition, and it’s definitely in the process of being deprecated – in true Microsoft fashion, it’s just taking them a really long time, because nobody inside Microsoft seems to really care about Windows anymore.