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Activate GodMode in Windows 10

GodMode puts all of your settings under one roof.

Matt Elliott Senior Editor
Matt Elliott is a senior editor at CNET with a focus on laptops and streaming services. Matt has more than 20 years of experience testing and reviewing laptops. He has worked for CNET in New York and San Francisco and now lives in New Hampshire. When he's not writing about laptops, Matt likes to play and watch sports. He loves to play tennis and hates the number of streaming services he has to subscribe to in order to watch the various sports he wants to watch.
Expertise Laptops, desktops, all-in-one PCs, streaming devices, streaming platforms
Sarah Jacobsson Purewal Freelance Writer
Sarah is a freelance writer and CNET How To blogger. Her main focus is Windows, but she also covers everything from mobile tech to video games to DIY hardware projects. She likes to press buttons and see what happens, so don't let her near any control panels.
Matt Elliott
Sarah Jacobsson Purewal

In Windows 10 , settings and controls are divided between the Settings menu and the traditional Control Panel . Some settings -- including touchscreen-specific settings and Windows Update -- are found only in the Settings menu, while others, such as the Device Manager, are still mostly accessed through the Control Panel.

It is, to be sure, a needlessly confusing arrangement. If you're sick of switching between Settings and the Control Panel, searching for your lost settings, there is a way to access all settings and controls in one place: GodMode.

GodMode has been around since Windows 7 but is still alive and well with Windows 10. It is a dedicated folder that puts all of your settings in one place, where you'll be able to do everything from adding clocks for different time zones to defragmenting your drives. And it's a snap to set up.

Set up GodMode

To enable GodMode, check if the user account you are using is an administrator account and then right-click on the desktop and click New > Folder.

Next, copy and paste the following into the folder name:

GodMode.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}

Note: Make sure to copy the whole line above, including GodMode, the period and the brackets.

The folder icon will change to a control panel icon. Double-click on the new icon to see your universal settings panel. The settings are organized under various headings, from Administrative Tools to Windows Firewall.

godmode-settings
Screenshot by Matt Elliott/CNET

Editors' note: This story was originally published on August 18, 2015 and has since been updated.