Can't fix Control Panel default view: small icons

When I open Control Panel I prefer the small icon view not the Category view. For the years I've used Win 10, it has always opened to small icon view. And if it was Category view, all I'd need to do is use small icon view and it was then fixed for the next time I opened Control Panel.


Recently it's been stuck on Category view, I've tried the 2 common fixes for this:


REGEDIT ForceClassicControlPanel = 1


Or the Group Policy fix, since i have Win 10 Pro.


The only thing I can think of is the change I made to the aerolite Theme to make thicker borders on windows. Maybe this is a bug or a OS corruption.


Any suggestions on fixing this?

That works perfectly.


I have a Desktop icon I use to open Control panel. I just made a new shortcut and put in your code for "Target" and it works. I changed the icon to the Control Panel icon. So it looks and acts like I want.


This is a workaround, yet I guess it bugs me that I can't get it to work the normal way. Thanks for the workaround. If you have any more ideas let me know, otherwise I'll just let this be the solution.

The only way I've ever opened it is from a shortcut on the desktop. Now that I made my own shortcut with the code from you, it's pretty much solved

What I do is hit the "Show Desktop" icon on my taskbar and then dbl click the desktop icon. I've never been a big fan of the Start button. I like just using Desktop Icons. I do have a 3rd party Classic Start button on my other computer, because the Win 7 Start button had a feature I needed.

Thanks so much for solving this issue for me. I love this forum!

I can access Control Panel easier as a Desktop Icon than the Start button