Exploring the Windows 10 Settings Center

If you’ve been using Windows OS over the years, you’ll agree that with every passing version the windows settings options gets more and more scattered. Windows 8 probably was the worst with options to open your PC settings from a number of different places. Thankfully, Microsoft has realized their folly and unified all system settings under one location in Windows 10.

The Windows Settings is organized it in a clean, logical system so that its easy to find the controls you're looking for without having to rummage through numerous windows.

A Unified Windows 10 Settings Center

You can find the Windows 10 Settings in the Start menu. The Settings window displays 9 categories which are represented by icons and short descriptions. This Settings area is not a replacement for the Windows Control Panel though. You can still access the Control Panel by right-clicking the Windows Start screen and choosing Control Panel but its a lot easier to find what you are looking for via the Windows Settings.

Finding Your Adapter Settings - Control Panel via Windows 10 Settings

Let's take a look at an example. Let's say you wanted to change your network adapter settings via the Control Panel. You'd right-click the Windows Start menu, select Control Panel. Then under Network and Internet, you'd click on view Network Status and Tasks. Then on the left pane you'd select Change adapter settings.

In Windows 10, you'll open up the Start menu and select Settings. Next, you'll select Network and Internet. On the WiFi tab, scroll down the right pane, and click Change adapter options.

You can see that the finding this option was a whole lot easier and quicker via Windows Settings than from the Control Panel.

Finding Your IP - Control Panel via Windows 10 Settings

Now let's take another example and try locating your IP address. If you wanted to find this via the Control Panel, you'd have to go to the View Network Status and Tasks link, click on your active network connection, then click Details to find the information from a whole lot of other stuff. Now if you were a power user, this wouldn't be a problem, but for many casual users, this can be quite frustrating.

In Windows 10, you open up Settings and then click on Network and Internet. If you're on WiFi, you can select your WiFi account, click Advanced Options and find your IP under Properties. That was a lot easier wasn't it!

Let's explore some more Windows Settings. Under System, you'll find plenty of useful settings like Display, which allows you to adjust the size of the content on your screen, Power and Sleep, which lets you tweak your power settings, and Storage, which lets you check how much of your hard drive is available. Here you can also set your save locations. For example, if you keep your photo collection on an external drive, you could select that drive under New pictures will save to.

The Privacy Settings category lets you set your privacy options, see your location history, give apps access to your Camera, Microphone and so on.

The unified settings in Windows 10 has been well thought of and designed which should take all the frustration out of finding just about any settings or options you need.