Microsoft has been transitioning more and more capabilities from the old Control Panel to the new Settings app ever since Windows 8 made its debut, but over 10 years later, Windows 11 still comes with both apps. Recently, the company stated that it was deprecating the Control Panel over time, before retracting that statement just a few days later.

Regardless, the writing seems to be on the wall for Control Panel, as it's clear Microsoft prefers to have users in the Settings app instead. But before it can make a full transition, Microsoft needs to make sure the Settings app is up to snuff, and there are quite a few things that are still essential to move over before we're done. So let's take a look at a few of them.

Device Manager, disk management, and more

These could just be links

We're starting with a general grouping of many old Windows features because, truth be told, these aren't really Control Panel features. Features like Device Manager, Disk Management, and advanced search indexing options are separate dialogs from the Control Panel itself. However, the easiest way to access them currently is through Control Panel, and most of them don't have easily accessible links in the Settings app.

Ideally, all of these elements would be updated and integrated directly in the Settings app with a fresh new UI, but that would take a ton of time to accomplish, and Microsoft isn't exactly known for going the extra mile. Really, all the company needs to do for this to be passable is to include links to the existing dialogs in visible areas of the Settings app, so users can easily get to them without Control Panel. An interesting example of this is the User Account Control dialog, which can be accessed through the Settings app, but seemingly only by using the search bar in the app.

Advanced power options

Or just get rid of these altogether

One of the potential options that needs to be moved into the Settings app (and significantly restructured) is advanced power management. This whole situation is very confusing right now because Control panel is home to power plans, which can include custom plans created by a PC manufacturer. Meanwhile, the Settings app lets you choose a power mode, which is somehow different. If your PC has a high performance power plan in Control Panel, that will actually disable the power mode menu ion the Settings app. It's so strange.

Users can also create their own power plans in Control Panel, allowing them to tweak settings like how much power the CPU can use, or how long it should take for spinning hard drives to turn off when idle. These options are also absent in the Settings app, and they should be added before Microsoft kills off the Control Panel.

The ideal approach here is to remove most of the power plan interface as it is, and add the ability to create custom power plans and change advanced settings through the Settings app. It would make things a lot less confusing, too.

BitLocker drive encryption

The Settings app is still too limited

BitLocker is a pretty useful feature for keeping your data safe in the event that your computer gets stolen. Device encryption as already available in the Settings app, but the way it works is far more limited. You can either turn it on or off for your PC as a whole, but if you want to manage BitLocker settings for individual drives on Windows 11 Pro or higher, you still need the Control Panel.

This seems like a no-brainer, especially considering the device encryption page in the Settings app is so barren. All the options in the Control Panel, like encrypting individual drives or backing up the recovery keys, should just be moced into this page and create a more seamless user experience. As it stands, it feels disjointed, and the primary purpose of the Settings page is just to direct users to Control Panel.

System Restore

And other recovery methods

Finally, we have some more recovery methods that Microsoft somehow hasn't migrated to the Settings app just yet. There are actually a few of this, but the most notable, in my opinion, is System Restore. This feature lets you revert your system to an earlier point in time, deleting apps you may have installed since then. It's a great and easy way to go back to a working state if you've been experimenting and messed something up by accident. All the recovery options in the Settings app are either basic troubleshooters or they require you to reinstall Windows. System Restore is an easy feature to bring back.

Similarly, creating a Recovery Drive is also a feature that's still only in the Control Panel. Sure, in many cases, you can just reinstall Windows, but using the Recovery Drive feature is something Microsoft itself still recommends for restoring its Surface devices to the factory settings. This should be built into the Settings app. Other features like File History are also still not in the Settings app.

To be fair, these are all dialogs that are also separate from Control Panel itself, so they could fit in the first section here. However, they seem like they should be much easier to bring over to the Settings app without any loss of functionality, so it would be ideal if these settings were built into the app itself. Plus, these are all important features to help users keep their files and work safe, so I'd say these are the most urgent settings to move over.

Will the Settings app replace Control Panel?

There are still major chunks of Windows settings that reside or are more easily accessible through Control Panel, and it sometimes feels like Microsoft isn't all that interested in moving those settings over to the Settings app. It's taken many years to get where we are now, and clearly, there's still a lot of work to be done. Hopefully, Microsoft gets around to it sooner rather than later.