Solved Removing a control panel that doesn't have a CPL file?

[Cartilpone]

I use an application that installs itself as both 32 bit and 64 bit versions. I have no idea why, just bad programming I guess (I have Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit). As such its control panel shows up twice in Control Panels. It's a small complaint I know but for the sake of having OCD I'd rather there only be one version of the cp.

Despite Googling for a while on this subject I can't find a proper solution. I've seen plenty of suggestions mentioning removing/renaming the associated cpl file but, this control panel doesn't appear to use a cpl file, I can't find one at any rate. The only thing I can even vaguely find referencing it is in the Registry. I tried deleting those keys but the 32bit control panel persists (so I restored them for now).

Those registry keys mention a DLL file, inside the program's installation folder, and sure enough there are two, one called ControlPanelResources.dll and the other ControlPanelResources64.dll. As stated the app is configured to install itself twice, seemingly, the 32bit and the 64bit version, all in the same place -Program Files (x86).

I have also looked in the registry under the usual areas relating to control panels; HKLM/Software/Microsoft/Windows/Current Version/Explorer/Control Panel, but there are no keys in there referencing these control panels. The keys I found are elsewhere in the registry.

Any ideas? All I want to do is remove the 32bit instance from control panels, nothing else. But clearly the cpl (if there is one) is hidden away somewhere I can't find even by searching with a wildcard for *.cpl. I suspect those DLL's are to do with this? However surly there's a key in the registry I simply have to delete to remove that CP from the list. Is there a way or a method I should follow to find out exactly what key?

Or, in fact is there another way of having control panels show up in the list other than the registry and via cpls? The control panel itself is afterall really just a shotcut to the program since that's what the program is, a control panel (it's not for instance a program that has a control panel as a separate entity).

 

[Brink]

Hello Cartilpone, and welcome to Seven Forums.

You might see if you may be able to hide the Control Panel icon using the method in the tutorial below.

Control Panel - Hide Icon

 

[Cartilpone]

Hi Brink, thanks for the suggestion.

I tried to do it via the registry method from the tutorial you've linked to, seeing as I don't believe I can access gpedit with Home Premium. Unfortunately it doesn't seem to work. Well, it kind of does; if I enter the name of the control panel to disallow as the 64bit version it hides both control panels. If however I use the name of the 32bit version (which is the same as the 64bit version name except it has "(32-bit)" appended to the end), neither control panel is hidden.

 

[Brink]

It would appear that they are treated the same to remove both or none.

 

[GokAy]

Is there any entry for the 32bit within Programs and Features?

 

[Cartilpone]

There's only the one entry for it in Programs and Features for some reason or another. Though I've apparently sorted it.

Before I searched the registry for the name of the control panel, it did find a few entries and one in particular seemed have stuff relating to those DLL's I mentioned, that I deleted but that didn't seem to make any difference. Thinking perhaps the DLL's are indeed the source of the control panels, I searched the registry for the name of the non-64bit one. Bingo, found two entries this time that referenced that DLL. The first one was the one I deleted before but the second one didn't have the name of the control panel in it, only the DLL, so I deleted that as well and now there's only one control panel listed!

Bit of a arse-about-face way of going about it and I expect this is mostly a unique instance to me but, heck, it's sorted so I'm happy. Lol. Thanks all for the help!

 

[Brink]

Great news.