Nvidia is finally ditching its iconic Control Panel after 20 years — new driver updates only ship in the Nvidia App

Source: Tom’s Hardware

Image credit: Nvidia

Retirement of the Nvidia Control Panel

After 20 years of service, Nvidia is officially retiring the Nvidia Control Panel and replacing it with the Nvidia App. According to the patch notes for Nvidia’s latest Game Ready driver, the control panel will no longer receive new features and will no longer be bundled with the latest Game Ready and Studio drivers for GeForce GPUs. The only exception is RTX Pro GPUs, where Nvidia will keep supporting the control panel until all “professional features” have been migrated to the Nvidia App.

Availability and Migration

The Nvidia Control Panel will now operate in a “maintenance mode” for the foreseeable future. Users who still want to use it won’t be forced to keep outdated drivers; future driver updates will not delete the control panel unless a “clean install” is performed. Nvidia is also keeping the control panel downloadable through the Microsoft Store.

This change fulfills Nvidia’s goal of consolidating the Control Panel and GeForce Experience into a single application. Since the Nvidia App was unveiled in 2024, features have been gradually migrated. By 2025, key components such as 3D Settings, Multi‑Monitor support, and offline system‑level controls were moved to the Nvidia App, leaving few remaining features.

Implications for GeForce Users

For most GeForce users, there is little reason to continue using the classic control panel. The Nvidia App provides driver‑level tuning, video recording, GPU monitoring, overclocking controls, automatic game optimization, and automated driver updates. Nonetheless, retaining the old control panel offers a fallback for occasional bugs in the Nvidia App.