Microsoft 'turns the wheel' to bring the old Network Connections settings back to Windows 11

As you know, over the past few years Microsoft has slowly phased out the old Control Panel interface by redirecting users to the same settings in the more modern Settings feature. First, they moved the System panel to the About section in Settings. Next, Programs and Features was moved to Apps.

Recently, Microsoft continued to remove the Network Connections setting (ncpa.cpl) and redirect to Advanced Network Settings in the versions of Windows 11 for Dev channel participants. The file associated with the control panel is not deleted because the ncpa.cpl file is still in the C:/Windows/System32 folder.

Microsoft 'turns the wheel' to bring the old Network Connections settings back to Windows 11 Picture 1

However, when a Windows 11 user tries to open ncpa.cpl the operating system automatically redirects to the Advanced network settings screen. As a result, users cannot access the old network control panel which is much more useful.

But in the newly released version of Windows 11 Build 22538 for the Dev channel, Microsoft has decided to "turn the car". The Network Connections control panel has been brought back to the users.

Microsoft 'turns the wheel' to bring the old Network Connections settings back to Windows 11 Picture 2

Microsoft did not disclose why they did so, other than a message that: "Those who need to use can once again access ncpa.cpl".

It's not clear why Microsoft made this change. However, the Windows admin community on the /r/sysadmin subsection of Reddit joked that Microsoft programmers may not have been able to fix network problems from Advanced network settings in Settings, so they were forced to bring Network Connections back. .

"My guess is their developers had some network issues that couldn't be effectively fixed with the new interface. So they brought the old interface back," one Reddit user joked. funny said.

David Pac

Update 24 January 2022