Controls for Windows apps

In Windows app development, a control is a UI element that displays content or enables interaction. Controls are the building blocks of the user interface. A pattern is a recipe for combining several controls to make something new.

We provide 45+ controls for you to use, ranging from simple buttons to powerful data controls like the grid view. These controls are a part of the Fluent Design System and can help you create a bold, scalable UI that looks great on all devices and screen sizes.

The articles in this section provide design guidance and coding instructions for adding controls & patterns to your Windows app.

Intro

General instructions and code examples for adding and styling controls in XAML and C#.

Add controls and handle events
There are 3 key steps to adding controls to your app: Add a control to your app UI, set properties on the control, and add code to the control’s event handlers so that it does something.

Styling controls
You can customize the appearance of your apps in many ways by using the XAML framework. Styles let you set control properties and reuse those settings for a consistent appearance across multiple controls.

Get the Windows UI Library

Some controls are only available in the Windows UI Library (WinUI), a NuGet package that contains new controls and UI features. To get it, see the Windows UI Library overview and installation instructions.
Starting with WinUI 2.2, the default style for many controls has been updated to use rounded corners. For more info, see Corner radius.

Alphabetical index

Detailed information about specific controls and patterns.

• Animated visual player (see Lottie)
• Auto-suggest box
• Button
• Calendar date picker
• Calendar view
• Checkbox
• Color picker
• Combo box
• Command bar
• Command bar flyout
• Contact card
• Content dialog
• Content link
• Context menu
• Date picker
• Dialogs and flyouts
• Drop down button
• Flip view
• Flyout
• Forms (pattern)
• Grid view
• Hyperlink
• Hyperlink button
• Images and image brushes
• Inking controls
• List/details (pattern)
• List view
• Map control
• Media playback
• Menu bar
• Menu flyout
• Navigation view

• Number box
• Parallax view
• Password box
• Person picture
• Pivot
• Progress bar
• Progress ring
• Radio button
• Rating control
• Repeat button
• Rich edit box
• Rich text block
• Scroll viewer
• Search (pattern)
• Semantic zoom
• Shapes
• Slider
• Split button
• Split view
• Swipe control
• Tab view
• Teaching tip
• Text block
• Text box
• Time picker
• Toggle switch
• Toggle button
• Toggle split button
• Tooltips
• Tree view
• Two-pane view
• Web view

XAML Controls Gallery

Get the XAML Controls Gallery app from the Microsoft Store to see these controls and the Fluent Design System in action. The app is an interactive companion to this website. When you have it installed, you can use links on individual control pages to launch the app and see the control in action.

Additional controls

Additional controls for Windows development are available from companies such as Telerik, SyncFusion, DevExpress, Infragistics, ComponentOne, and ActiPro. These controls provide additional support for enterprise and .NET developers by augmenting the standard system controls with custom controls and services.

Take control of your Windows start-up

The articles set out below are articles created and/or produced by Future Publishing Limited. Microsoft is not responsible for the content, accuracy or opinions expressed in these articles.

Landmark

Are you sacrificing memory space and performance for mystery programs? Then it’s time to regain control of your PC. We take an in-depth look at Windows startup options

It doesn’t take long for the number of programs installed on your PC to get out of control. Between utilities to block pop-up windows, instant messaging programs and download managers, your Windows system tray can quickly become a distorted rainbow of icons whose purpose may be a mystery.

Unfortunately, as more and more utilities are designed to start automatically upon loading Windows, system performance tends to suffer. Not only do these utilities lengthen the time that your system takes to load, but they also consume valuable memory space – often needlessly. The good news is that regaining control of your PC is possible without the need to uninstall programs used only occasionally. With a quick look at the Windows start-up process and few different utilities, you can be back in control of your system in no time.

The start-up folder

When a Windows system boots, shortcuts to programs contained in your start-up folder are launched automatically. Many installed programs will add a shortcut to this folder as part of their installation process. For example, if you have Microsoft Office installed, there’s a good chance that you’ll find a shortcut to the Office toolbar stored in this folder. When the shortcuts contained in this folder are deleted, the particular program will no longer launch automatically. Although having some programs load immediately is useful, a number of those placed in the start-up folder are more obscure and probably not of much use to you on a daily basis.

The key to dealing with the start-up folder is finding it. On a Windows 98 system, this folder is accessible from the Start menu, Program Files, Startup section. Pointing to this location will display a list of shortcuts to programs set to run automatically. Then you can right-click the Start menu shortcut and delete them.

If the start-up folder doesn’t hold the key to all those utilities that launch automatically, the answer is almost always found in the Windows Registry. Although you should generally avoid manually editing the Registry unless you know what you’re doing, this is the place where you’ll find the definitive answer to what Windows is loading automatically.

Later in this article we’ll take a look at various utilities that enable you to control your PC’s start-up environment. Ultimately, each of these tools provides a prettier interface from which you can more safely edit Registry values.

The Windows Registry is by its nature a complex beast, which is part of the reason why we generally recommend staying away from it. Prior to making any Registry changes, always ensure that you’ve backed it up.

The two main tools used to interact with the Registry are Regedit.exe and Regedt32.exe. The settings that control which utilities always run automatically at startup tend to be stored in four different locations: two under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, and another two under HKEY_CURRENT_USER.

In both cases, the most common place to look for startup settings is under the \Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\ folder (or key), where you’ll find two important folders: Run and RunServices. Both folders will contain values that specify the path to programs or services to be launched automatically, as shown below.

To prevent a program or service from starting automatically, delete the value associated with the offending program. However, be sure to note exactly which programs you need to remove prior to taking this action. You won’t be prompted to save any of your changes, and mistakenly deleting a required application or service may render your system unbootable.

System configuration utility

For those who would rather stay out of the Registry, a much simpler solution exists in the form of the Microsoft System Configuration Utility (Msconfig). This easy-to-use utility included with most Windows versions provides you with a graphical interface that enables you to control a variety of system start-up options, including which programs and services are configured to load automatically. The main area of interest in the program is the Startup tab, which provides a list of all start-up items, enabling you to easily enable or disable individual entries.

Msconfig goes a long way beyond simply enabling you to control start-up items. The program also makes it possible to change common Windows start-up files such as Config.sys, Autoexec.bat, Win.ini and System.ini. The ability to selectively enable, disable and edit these files through the Msconfig interface helps to avoid syntax errors and makes it easy to return files to a previous state.

For troubleshooting purposes, Msconfig enables you to back up and restore your current or previous settings, as well as control which files should be processed or advanced elements configured to troubleshoot the start-up process. For example, you might choose to process only certain system files when the PC next starts to test changes, or disable scandisk after a bad shutdown.

Alternative start-up managers

Given the popularity of customising or ‘tweaking’ a system to better meet individual needs, it’s little surprise that a variety of third-party start-up manager programs exist. Of the different freeware and shareware programs available, two of the most popular are Xteq X-Start from Xteq Systems, and Startup Control Panel by Mike Lin. X-Start is a full-blown tweaking utility that’s free for non-commercial use, and enables you to edit just about every element of a Windows system, including relevant startup and shutdown settings. The explanations provided for each setting are particular helpful, as is the wizard feature that will take an inexperienced user through the settings.

If it’s a more simple utility that you’re after, then Startup Control Panel is probably your best bet. This utility adds an additional applet to the Control Panel called Startup. Accessing the applet provides you with a quick and easy way to both enable and disable start-up options according to their system location. While many utilities provide a myriad of complex options, Startup Control Panel does an excellent job of keeping things simple for users looking to control their start-up environment.

First steps in Msconfig

Use the little utility that makes it easy to control Windows start-up items

1. From the Run command, open Msconfig. This opens the application to the General tab, as shown above. Click the Create Backup button to back up your current settings.

2. Click the Startup tab. Scroll through the items configured to start automatically, unchecking those that you no longer wish to have started when Windows loads.

3. Click OK to close Msconfig. Click Yes when prompted to reboot your PC. View the system tray to check your work.

Tweak UI

Sometimes the best Microsoft utilities aren’t installed with Windows

Although the Msconfig utility does a good job of enabling you to quickly and effectively control your PC’s start-up environment, Microsoft also has another great program that enables you to tweak and tune to a greater degree: Tweak UI.

While Windows 98 doesn’t give you the option to specifically control which programs load at boot time, Tweak UI does provide a few nifty features that will spare you the pain of digging through the Registry or endlessly clicking through the Windows interface. Among our favourite features are those found on the Paranoia tab. Settings here enable you to clear your Documents automatically, Internet Explorer and Run command history at logon, and the name of the last user who logged on to the system, all giving you a little more privacy. The Windows 98 version of the tool is available for download from the Microsoft Web site.

This material is the copyright material of or licensed to Future Publishing Limited, a Future Network plc group company, UK 2004. All rights reserved.

Control Panel in Windows

Use the Control Panel to make changes to Windows settings

Control Panel is the centralized configuration area in Windows. It changes nearly every aspect of the operating system, including keyboard and mouse function, passwords and users, network settings, power management, desktop backgrounds, sounds, hardware, program installation and removal, speech recognition, and parental control.

Think of Control Panel as the place to go in Windows if you want to change something about how it looks or works.

How to Access the Control Panel

In recent versions of Windows, Control Panel resides in the Windows System folder or category in the Apps listing.

In other versions of Windows, click Start and then Control Panel or Start, then Settings, then Control Panel.

See How to Open Control Panel for detailed, operating system specific directions.

Although it’s not an «official» way to open and use the options in Control Panel, there’s also a special folder you can make in Windows called GodMode that gives you all the same Control Panel features but in a simple one-page folder.

How to Use the Control Panel

The Control Panel itself is really just a collection of shortcuts to individual components called Control Panel applets. Therefore, to use Control Panel really means to use an individual applet to change some part of how Windows works.

See our Complete List of Control Panel Applets for more information on the individual applets and what they are for.

If you’re looking for a way to access the areas of Control Panel directly, without first going through Control Panel, see our List of Control Panel Commands in Windows for the commands that start each applet. Since some applets are shortcuts to files with the .CPL file extension, you can point directly to the CPL file to open that component.

For example, control timedate.cpl works in some versions of Windows to open the Date and Time settings, and control hdwwiz.cpl is a shortcut to Device Manager.

The physical location of these CPL files, as well as folders and DLLs that point to other Control Panel components, are stored in the Windows Registry HKLM hive, under \SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\; the CPL files are found in \Control Panel\Cpls and all the rest are in \Explorer\ControlPanel\Namespace.

Control Panel Views

The applets in Control Panel display in two major ways: by category or individually. All Control Panel applets are available either way but you may prefer one method of finding an applet over the other:

Windows 10, 8, & 7: Control Panel applets display by Category, which groups them together logically, or in the Large icons or Small icons view, which lists them individually.

Windows Vista: The Control Panel Home view groups applets while the Classic View shows each applet individually.

Windows XP: Category View groups the applets and Classic View lists them as individual applets.

Generally, the category views tend to give a bit more explanation about what each applet does but sometimes makes it hard to get right to where you want to go. Most people prefer the classic or icon views of Control Panel since they learn more about what the various applets do.

Control Panel Availability

Control Panel is available in nearly every Microsoft Windows version including Windows 10, Windows 8, Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP, Windows 2000, Windows ME, Windows 98, Windows 95, and more.

Throughout the history of Control Panel, components were added and removed in every newer version of Windows. Some Control Panel components were even moved to the Settings app and PC Settings in Windows 10 and Windows 8, respectively.

Even though Control Panel is available in almost every Windows operating system, significant differences in the number and scope of applets occur from one Windows version to the next.