Anyone tried running settings.exe with command line arguments?

[Guest tsaylor]

Normally on a Smartphone it is possible to open a particular control panel screen by running settings.exe with a command line argument of the particular control panel, such as "home.cpl.xml" (assuming you are using a launcher program or something else which supports command lines). Essentially, a command like "\windows\settings.exe home.cpl.xml".

On the Vox this does not seem to work. Anyone know why this is, or how to get around it? Something seems to be different about settings.exe on this device.

Edited May 24, 2007 by tsaylor

[Guest looeee]

I used to do this on Windows Smartphone 2002, 2003 and 2003se

I have not been able to get it to work on WM5 or WM6

I can't find any documentation that explains what the correct commandline should be but the error "The control panel document home.cpl.xml cannot be loaded. Verify the XML and try loading the control panel again" does imply that there is a correct way of opening it.

looeee

[Guest chucky.egg]

I thought the CPL bits were only on PPC?

[Guest looeee]

I thought the CPL bits were only on PPC?

what's a CPL bit?

I think that on a PPC, control panel files are, as on a PC, just renamed DLL files.

On the Smartphone OSs they are XML files

[Guest tsaylor]

I used to do this on Windows Smartphone 2002, 2003 and 2003se

I have not been able to get it to work on WM5 or WM6

I can't find any documentation that explains what the correct commandline should be but the error "The control panel document home.cpl.xml cannot be loaded. Verify the XML and try loading the control panel again" does imply that there is a correct way of opening it.

looeee

Thanks for the reply. In my experience this is working fine in all versions (from 2002 all the way up to WM6). As far as I have seen, it is only the Vox that isn't working.

Edited May 25, 2007 by tsaylor

[Guest tsaylor]

Thanks for the reply. In my experience this is working fine in all versions (from 2002 all the way up to WM6). As far as I have seen, it is only the Vox that isn't working.

Just to add a bit more info, it seems like it is really just "power.cpl.xml" that isn't working, as in "settings.exe power.cpl.xml". There must be something different about the power control panel used on this device.

[Guest looeee]

Just to add a bit more info, it seems like it is really just "power.cpl.xml" that isn't working, as in "settings.exe power.cpl.xml". There must be something different about the power control panel used on this device.

You're so right. it does work.

You can make a shortcut to Settings.exe and add the name of any cpl.xml file as a parameter. Really handy for those inaccessable control panels like the alarm, wifi and network settings.

I have assumed it didn't work for a couple of years because when you click on the shortcut.lnk file from Smart Explorer you get that error I reported. Launching it from the start menu does work. Smart Explorer must not be setting the working folder correctly.

Shame about the power.cpl.xml

Time to reorganise my start menu

[Guest tsaylor]

You're so right. it does work.

You can make a shortcut to Settings.exe and add the name of any cpl.xml file as a parameter. Really handy for those inaccessable control panels like the alarm, wifi and network settings.

I have assumed it didn't work for a couple of years because when you click on the shortcut.lnk file from Smart Explorer you get that error I reported. Launching it from the start menu does work. Smart Explorer must not be setting the working folder correctly.

Shame about the power.cpl.xml

Time to reorganise my start menu

Glad that is helpful to you. Apparently the power.cpl.xml file is not valid on the Vox, and for power settings that phone uses a CLSID-based control panel instead of a ".cpl.xml" based control panel (this can be seen in rootgsm.cpl.xml). What I haven't figured out is whether there is any way to use a shortcut to run one of those clsid control panels.