Messing around with Windows 7 "God Modes"

By now you’re probably well-acquainted with the “discovery” of so-called “god modes” or “superuser” features in Windows 7.  In actuality, these are nothing more than undocumented developer shortcuts to common control panel dialogs, apps and utils.  In fact, the wild-eyed brouhaha that’s erupted from this has caused some mirth down Redmond way, with Windows Division President, Steven Sinofsky even providing a C|NET reporter with a list of the shortcuts.

Here’s how you can quickly create your own “god mode” shortcut links to experiment with:

Step 1:  Copy the following code into your fave editor and save as a batch file – I called mine “godmodes.bat” (removing the line numbers).  Save this file in a folder on your desktop or other preferred location.

    1 mkdir "GodModeA.{05d7b0f4-2121-4eff-bf6b-ed3f69b894d9}"

    2 mkdir "GodModeB.{1206F5F1-0569-412C-8FEC-3204630DFB70}"

    3 mkdir "GodModeC.{15eae92e-f17a-4431-9f28-805e482dafd4}"

    4 mkdir "GodModeD.{17cd9488-1228-4b2f-88ce-4298e93e0966}"

    5 rem mkdir "GodMode.{1D2680C9-0E2A-469d-B787-065558BC7D43}"

    6 mkdir "GodModeE.{1FA9085F-25A2-489B-85D4-86326EEDCD87}"

    7 mkdir "GodModeF.{208D2C60-3AEA-1069-A2D7-08002B30309D}"

    8 mkdir "GodModeG.{20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D}"

    9 mkdir "GodModeH.{2227A280-3AEA-1069-A2DE-08002B30309D}"

   10 mkdir "GodModeI.{241D7C96-F8BF-4F85-B01F-E2B043341A4B}"

   11 mkdir "GodModeJ.{4026492F-2F69-46B8-B9BF-5654FC07E423}"

   12 rem mkdir "GodMode.{62D8ED13-C9D0-4CE8-A914-47DD628FB1B0}"

   13 mkdir "GodModeK.{78F3955E-3B90-4184-BD14-5397C15F1EFC}"

   14 mkdir "GodModeL.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}"

Note:  The rem’ed entries were included in Sinofsky’s list, but didn’t work when I created them – I’ve included them here for completeness.

Step 2:  Open a command console using Run As Administrator from your Start Menu and execute the batch file created in Step 1 above.

Step 3:  Behold the “God Mode” links that have been created – double-click and explore away!  The most useful one by far is the last one, the “original” God Mode discovery that provides a consolidated list of shortcuts to just about every imaginable Windows 7 control panel feature, property manager or utility.

One more note:  The folder names don’t have to be prefixed with “GodMode” – in fact, any prefix will do.  As the batch file reveals, the trick is in naming the folder with a “.[GUID]” suffix.  I’ve added an alphabetical identifier to each of my entries to keep them in order.