Vista #8 - disappearing control panels Vista #8 - disappearing control panels

It seemed like all of a sudden, and my control panels disappeared out of Windows Vista. After a lot of investigation, I found that I could execute them directly from the Windows\System32 directory. But, I couldn't get them to run from the start menu.

I went through a system restore to a point a couple of days ago, to no avail. Then, I started playing a bit more with Services, and found the culprit: "Software Licensing". Apparently, in my attempts to turn off some of the nagging, irritating, Vista stuff, I had turned that service off. Reading it carefully, it indicated that the service:

Enables the download, installation and enforcement of digital licenses for Windows and Windows applications. If the service is disabled, the operating system and licensed applications may run in a reduced function mode.

Apparently, MSFT's definition of "reduced function mode" means no Control Panels. But I still can't figure out the logical connection between "Software Licensing" and the Control Panel.

Now all I have to do is figure out why the parallel port driver is being started, since I don't have a parallel port and it therefore error terminates after each boot.