How to reach "Change adapter settings" window without going through "Network and sharing center"?

Question

"Network and sharing center" is totally useless for me, all I need is to be able to disable/enable particular network interfaces and change TCP/IP settings whenever I want (which is quite frequently). It was made perfect in Windows XP - the window was named "Network connections" and was easy to reach. But In Windows 7 I have to open "Network and sharing center" first and then click "Change adapter settings" there. Isn't there a faster way to go there?

Answer 1

I've just figured out the answer myself. It actually hit me while I was typing the question, but I still think it is worth posting for further reference.

The solution I've found is to create an empty folder and name it

Network Connections.{7007acc7-3202-11d1-aad2-00805fc1270e}

I've found the list of CLSIDs available for this trick here.

But let's go further. I hate having icons on my desktop and I've found the way to put this to the start menu top level:

1. Create the folder (named as shown above) wherever on the hard drive.

2. Create (I've created it on the desktop and removed it at the end) a shortcut to explorer.exe with the folder full name as the parameter like this:

   explorer.exe c:\Quasifolders\Network Connections.{7007acc7-3202-11d1-aad2-00805fc1270e}

3. Change the icon and the name.

4. Drag it into the Start menu.

5. Delete it from the Desktop.

UPDATE:

I've found out that you don't even need to create an Explorer shortcut. Just put the avatar folder wherever you want (as I've said, it is needed to remain there) and drag it into the Start menu.