Last week it looked like Microsoft had confirmed that it was killing off the Control Panel and handing over the reins to the Settings app — a process that’s been in various phases of transition since the launch of Windows 8 12 years ago. But it might not be quite as simple as that.
The announcement claimed originally that “The Control Panel is in the process of being deprecated in favor of the Setting app, which offers a more modern and streamlined experience”. This is essentially a death warrant, with "deprecation" meaning a feature is frozen and marked for removal — even if it’s currently still available. But things have since changed (via Ars Technica).
But it's also worth noting that since the Control Panel has never been on an official list of Deprecated features for Windows 10 or 11, then it’s possible that this was a simple mistake. After all, the support pages are not really the appropriate place for these kinds of announcements. Even if they are announcements that we know are going to happen eventually.
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