Resolved How Do I Change Control Panel Default View?

Hi,
I just purchased a laptop with Win 7 Pro and am in the process of tweaking it, since I like XP's views . I am trying to get Control Panel to default to small icons. I change the "view by" to small icons and it shows up fine. But when I close Control Panel and reopen it, instead of showing the last view that I selected (small icons), it defaults back to Category view, even (if I restart the computer). I am not comfortable doing any registry editing, so I am hoping there is another way to accomplish this.
Thanks in advance

 

Thanks so much Evan. I followed the thread an finally got it to work

I am running Win 7 Pro, version 6.1, Service Pack 1, Build 7601:

Here is what finally worked for me, to change Control Panel to small icons.
1. I deleted my Control Panel desktop icon (thanks very much Ivan05 )

2. I then Expanded Control Panel in Start Menu (thanks to malektips.com/windows-7-control-panel-expand-start-menu.html):
a. Right-click an empty area of the taskbar and choose "Properties ".
b. The "Taskbar and Start Menu Properties" multi-tabbed dialog box appears. Click the "Start Menu" tab.
c. Click customize button, The "Customize Start Menu" dialog box appears. Underneath "Control Panel" click the "Display as a menu" radio button.
d. Click "OK" on the dialog boxes to close them.
3. Now when you hit Start you will see the Control Panel with a little arrow to the right, so if you hover it will show all items.
4. Now just right click the Control Panel line, and choose "Show On Desktop ". Open the desktop icon and you will see the small icons view.

Thanks everyone for all your help. I can finally sleep at night