Control Panel Seems to Load Slowly in Windows 95

• Microsoft Windows 95

SYMPTOMS

When you double-click a desktop shortcut linked to CONTROL.EXE to start Control Panel, there is a 60- to 90-second delay with intense hard disk activity before Control Panel appears.

CAUSE

The CONTROL.EXE program was designed to be used with a shell component such as Program Manager or File Manager from a previous version of Windows. When you are using Windows Explorer as the shell in Windows 95, starting CONTROL.EXE reloads much of the Windows 95 shell components, resulting in a delay.

RESOLUTION

To work around this behavior, use one of the following methods.

Method 1

Start Control Panel from My Computer instead of from the shortcut to CONTROL.EXE. To start Control Panel from My Computer, double-click My Computer on the desktop, then double-click Control Panel.

Method 2

Create a shortcut to Control Panel from the Control Panel icon in My Computer. To do so, follow these steps:

1. Double-click My Computer.

2. Drag the Control Panel icon from My Computer to the desktop.

3. When you are prompted whether you want to create a shortcut, choose Yes.