TLDR: Start–>Run–>ncpa.cpl

Have you ever lost 6 minutes of your life trying to find a network adapter in Windows? Yeah, me too.  Windows really started to mess with everyone’s mind back in Windows 8 when they moved stuff around with that horrible metro UI.  Since then the menus have been very confusing.  Where the heck did the control panel go?  Why are there settings in the settings menu instead of the control panel!

I don’t have the answers to those questions, but I can help you to find the Network Connections panel in 1 second.  You see, all of the menus in the control panel have shortcuts that you can just run from the command line.

To open Network Connections from pretty much any version of Windows you will encounter just run:

Start–>Run–>ncpa.cpl

If you are wondering what else you can open like this here is a useful list:

   Control panel tool             Command
   -----------------------------------------------------------------
   Accessibility Options          control access.cpl
   Add New Hardware               control sysdm.cpl add new hardware
   Add/Remove Programs            control appwiz.cpl
   Date/Time Properties           control timedate.cpl
   Display Properties             control desk.cpl
   FindFast                       control findfast.cpl
   Fonts Folder                   control fonts
   Internet Properties            control inetcpl.cpl
   Joystick Properties            control joy.cpl
   Keyboard Properties            control main.cpl keyboard
   Microsoft Exchange             control mlcfg32.cpl
      (or Windows Messaging)
   Microsoft Mail Post Office     control wgpocpl.cpl
   Modem Properties               control modem.cpl
   Mouse Properties               control main.cpl
   Multimedia Properties          control mmsys.cpl
   Network Properties             control netcpl.cpl
                                  NOTE: In Windows NT 4.0, Network
                                  properties is Ncpa.cpl, not Netcpl.cpl
   Password Properties            control password.cpl
   PC Card                        control main.cpl pc card (PCMCIA)
   Power Management (Windows 95)  control main.cpl power
   Power Management (Windows 98)  control powercfg.cpl
   Printers Folder                control printers
   Regional Settings              control intl.cpl
   Scanners and Cameras           control sticpl.cpl
   Sound Properties               control mmsys.cpl sounds
   System Properties              control sysdm.cpl

Enjoy,

deltadan

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