Confirmed it does work in Windows 11, and the desktop folder shortcut even gets assigned a special icon... however there is so much stuff in the folder I am not sure its really going to be that useful.
They're pre-generated by Microsoft. There's a list in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\CLSID you can use to try and find new ones. They've also been documented online for at least a decade, so you can save yourself the trouble.
Very few of these CLSID folders are actually useful to have somewhere. An interesting, but underused, feature of Windows is that applications can actually register CLSIDs like these and host their own special "explorer" panels.
Very interesting, thanks.
I'm not sure how valuable most of these are. But this seems to bring back the settings explorer panel, which I personally prefer.
It is a sad commentary on current trends that basic admin functionality is considered 'god mode' that is hidden with secret passphrases. Good grief. I absolutely hate that PCs are being made into cell phones.
> No, God Mode doesn't unlock any extra secret features in Windows or let you do any tweaking that you can't do in the regular Windows interface. Instead, it's simply a special folder you can enable that exposes most of Windows' admin, management, settings, and Control Panel tools in a single, easy-to-scroll-through interface.
Not sure what you think this says about current trends, when nothing is hidden or locked behind secret passphrases.
There are plenty of things to despise about the Windows and Microsoft, but a directory with a special name having shortcuts to things that are already accessible, might be very low on this ladder of shit.
I disagree. The trajectory is pretty clear if you remember what Windows 98 control panel looked like and then compare it to Windows 10. Things are slowly being removed outside user's view for one reason or another ( we can speculate about the why, but it is largely irrelevant as the end result is the same ).
It is admittedly a small thing. In a grand scheme of things, it is almost laughable given what MS has done so far. That said, small steps slowly erode the resistance we once had.
Not that long ago users would have revolted over 'always on' requirement for games that are not mmos. Now it is standard. Not that long ago users would have revolted over claims that a company collected data and sent it to the mothership. Now it is practically expected. All those started with small, negligible attempts that eventually broke the resistance.
> Things are slowly being removed outside user's view for one reason or another
What specific controls have been removed as of late? I've used Windows on/off since XP (and today use 11), mostly for professional audio stuff and some gaming, but as far as I can tell, everything that used to be accessible, still is. Some of it has different looks (like the sound device management) but a lot still look exactly the same (like the "Device Manager" or partition manager).
It’s kind of natural that basic admin functions are kept out of the way of most users. Most people are only rarely be interested in configuring the depths of their computers.
Websites for teenagers called this thing "god mode" in the days of early Windows Vista. People were excited to have found an undocumented CLSID and gave it a silly nickname.
This thing popping back up gave me some minor nostalgia. Pretty silly that it's still being presented as news, but I guess a whole generation of new sysadmins weren't even around the first time this popped up.
It's a special GUID registered in explorer that (I believe) lists all registered control panel applets and screens. The control panel is still there in Windows 11 (win+r, "control") but these applets are slowly being removed as the settings screen is getting more features.
You can try them for yourself. Last time I checked (back on Windows 7) they all worked. I don't think Microsoft has had any reason to remove the old ones, they're just part of the legacy control panel.
As a teenager on Windows 98, I think, I went through the CLSIDs in the registry and embedded them in folder names like this to see what happened. I don’t remember anything really cool happening, but I think I found a few special ones. One hung the system, or at least the shell, and my dad wasn’t happy about my experiments.
Also played with a feature where explorer would render your HTML when you opened the folder (maybe a desktop.ini setting), and there was probably a bit of JS integration possible.
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[ 0.24 ms ] story [ 96.3 ms ] threadhttps://www.xda-developers.com/how-to-enable-god-mode-window...
Very few of these CLSID folders are actually useful to have somewhere. An interesting, but underused, feature of Windows is that applications can actually register CLSIDs like these and host their own special "explorer" panels.
Not sure what you think this says about current trends, when nothing is hidden or locked behind secret passphrases.
There are plenty of things to despise about the Windows and Microsoft, but a directory with a special name having shortcuts to things that are already accessible, might be very low on this ladder of shit.
It is admittedly a small thing. In a grand scheme of things, it is almost laughable given what MS has done so far. That said, small steps slowly erode the resistance we once had.
Not that long ago users would have revolted over 'always on' requirement for games that are not mmos. Now it is standard. Not that long ago users would have revolted over claims that a company collected data and sent it to the mothership. Now it is practically expected. All those started with small, negligible attempts that eventually broke the resistance.
What specific controls have been removed as of late? I've used Windows on/off since XP (and today use 11), mostly for professional audio stuff and some gaming, but as far as I can tell, everything that used to be accessible, still is. Some of it has different looks (like the sound device management) but a lot still look exactly the same (like the "Device Manager" or partition manager).
- https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/system... - https://www.howtogeek.com/697152/where-did-the-system-contro...
This thing popping back up gave me some minor nostalgia. Pretty silly that it's still being presented as news, but I guess a whole generation of new sysadmins weren't even around the first time this popped up.
This trick goes back to at least Windows XP.
Also played with a feature where explorer would render your HTML when you opened the folder (maybe a desktop.ini setting), and there was probably a bit of JS integration possible.
You can simply run shell:::{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C} or make shortcut "explorer.exe shell:::{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}"
Why doesn't MS just let us "pin" this to Quick Access like a folder
Somethings I miss:
Ability to add a Folder as a "toolbar" to the taskbar.
Ability to keep the "calendar" window open while working on another window.
Ability to set custom date format say dd-mmm-yyyy in the system tray -- without changing Language/Region/Locale settings across the OS and all apps.
Desktop Widgets!