Originally posted May 2010, back when this trick was making the rounds as “GodMode” in Windows 7. Fifteen years on it still works — verified on Windows 10 and 11 — and it remains the fastest way to reach every administrative setting from one window.
The trick
Create a new folder on your desktop and rename it to exactly this (name + CLSID, including the braces):
GodMode.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}The folder’s icon changes to a Control Panel-style icon — the “GodMode” prefix is arbitrary; only the GUID matters.
What you actually get
Double-click it and you get the “All Tasks” view: a single, alphabetized list of every task in the Control Panel and its applets, from “Add a device” through “Windows Defender Firewall”. Two of my 2010 screenshots, still accurate in spirit:
The search box is the real payoff — type “firewall”, “font”, or “power” and you jump straight to the task without remembering which applet hides it. (The search matching works even better than it did in 2010, because Settings now indexes descriptions too.)
How it works
No magic, and not really “God Mode” — it is a Windows shell namespace extension. The GUID in braces is a CLSID registered in the registry; when a folder’s name ends in .{CLSID}, Explorer displays the registered shell object instead of the folder contents. This particular CLSID points to the Control Panel’s “All Tasks” canonical view. The name before the dot is just a label.
More CLSIDs worth pinning
Once you know the pattern, you can build shortcuts to other shell views the same way:
SomeName.{D20EA4E1-3957-11d2-A40B-0C5020524153}— Administrative ToolsSomeName.{D20EA4E1-3957-11d2-A40B-0C5020524152}— FontsSomeName.{7007ACC7-3202-11D1-AAD2-00805FC1270E}— Network ConnectionsSomeName.{208D2C60-3AEA-1069-A2D7-08002B30309D}— Network (modern Windows)
Rename them into a single “Admin” folder on your workstation and you have a one-click launcher for everything IT keeps asking you to open.
Caveats
- Works the same on Windows 10 and 11 — the task list just keeps growing.
- If the folder name shows up blank or the icon does not change, you are missing a brace or the CLSID is mistyped; delete and retype it. This trips people up so often that it has its own Microsoft Q&A thread.
- In managed environments, admins can block it by restricting the Control Panel via Group Policy — it exposes nothing you could not reach through the Control Panel anyway.
- It is a folder, so it syncs wherever you put it. Keep it on the desktop, not in a synced documents folder, or OneDrive will copy it to all your machines.
Original 2010 note for the record: it worked identically on Windows 7 back then, where the same trick was first popularized as a hidden “God Mode”.
Amazing…!!!!!!!!!! 😀