Here’s another tip accompanied by a screencast and this one’s on making Control Panel show up as a menu within Windows Vista’s Start Menu. By default, accessing control panel via the start menu would simply launch another window which allows you to choose between the default layout or the classic control panel layout. Converting your control panel to a menu might save you some time since you won’t have to deal with separate windows anymore.

• Right-click on the taskbar and select properties.
• Then select the Start Menu tab then across the start menu selection, click Customize.
• In the options look for control panel then select “Display as a menu.”
• Click OK to close all windows.