Time Saving Tuesday
Being a Windows user for all my life I have come to realize that my Start Menu quickly becomes filled with applications that I frequently install. Windows Vista makes this much better by incorporating an easy-to-access search bar right in the Start Menu. One thing that surprised me with the release of Vista was that it still sported the same old Quick Launch bar that seems to be an ineffective solution to accessing the programs you use the most.
First I’ll mention two programs that we have already written about on CyberNet before, but then I’ll throw in two programs that you probably haven’t heard about. This way you’ll have four different programs that all behave differently to help you launch programs and open files quicker than you ever have before.
—Launchy (Homepage / Download Mirror [version 1.03])—
Launchy is an amazing little program that we have covered here several times before. It was just 6 weeks ago that they rolled out version 1 and people all over the world have been grateful with the features Launchy brings to the table.
Once you have Launchy installed, you will be freed from your Start Menu, desktop, and much more! With it you can pull up it’s sleek little window (pictured below) and start typing anything. Launchy will then search the Start Menu for programs with that name as well as files in your My Documents folder. I wish I had a similar program to find things around the house. 
—RocketDock (Homepage / Download Mirror [version 1.3])—
Apple does a great job with some things in the Mac OS, and one of its claim to fame features is the Dock, typically located at the bottom of the window. That is where all of the shortcuts for programs as well as running programs are kept.
RocketDock does an amazing job of emulating the Mac OS Dock and the newest version provides even more benefits for Vista users. Anyone running Vista will be able to take advantage of a new feature for when windows are minimized to RocketDock. This new feature will actually let you preview minimized windows, which is especially awesome if you minimize a program that is playing something like a video. Then you’ll actually see a small thumbnail with that video playing! Check it out in this video:
—ManganeseMenu (Homepage / Download Mirror [version 1.1])—
This option is one of the more unique ones that I have seen. It essentially creates an expandable menu that pops out when you hover over it. Take a look at this screenshot that I put together that demonstrates the normal state on top and the hover state on the bottom:
The shortcuts available in the hover menu are highly customizable and you can put almost anything you want in it. Here are the different configuration screens that let you turn ManganeseMenu into your own personalized shortcut tool:
Note: I couldn’t get this application to work on Vista so I had to use it on Windows XP.
—Guillotine (Homepage / Download Mirror [version 1.5.1.0])—
This program reminds me quite a bit of Google Desktop because of the way it efficiently searches your computer for files and programs to run. After I had the program installed and running all I had to do was hit Ctrl+Space to pull up the search box and start searching for things:
Then there are also a large amount of configuration options:
In the settings you’ll be able to change a lot of things around. One of the cool things is that you can create custom keyword searches much like you can for Firefox and Opera. If you’re a searching addict then you will indeed find this to be useful! For more information on what (and how) Guillotine can do head on over to their documentation which also has many alternative screenshots available.
—Overview—
There are so many different ways to manage all of your shortcuts that I’m sure you can find a way that meets all of your needs. I use RocketDock to get quick access to all of my shortcuts. Previously I used Launchy as well, but Vista covers its turf well enough that I didn’t feel a need to use it anymore. You’ll never know what you will like until you play around with the different options.
Recommended software from the comments below:
- QLiner Hotkeys by Nosh
- RunIt! by FMsaziri
My main launcher app is Qliner Hotkeys, once you use it for a couple of weeks launching apps becomes second nature and you don’t even think about the shortcuts involved. Launchy is good for the lesser used programs but it has always been a bit of a crashmonkey on my system… truth be told the coding seems to have an amateurish feel to it – methinks it’s a bit overrated.
The DivShare link is for Launchy 1.0.0, I thought they had updated…
RunIT! is another great app along the same lines:
[go-runit.com]
That program looks really cool…just added it to the list of software I want to write about!
I thought it was for Launchy 1.03 as the setup file says.
Looks like that has a little bit of everything in it.
ryan, this probably isn’t the right place to ask this but…
i thought that somwhere in these launch programs or another post recently one of the programs you’ve talked about actually let you arrange how windows treats your startup programs so that you could customize the order they fire up. i can’t seem to locate where i was that i saw it, any ideas?
No, I have never seen a program like that before. The last I knew it was impossible to do that because of how Windows stores the startup applications, but I could be wrong.
finally found it…pcworld. so many rss sites, so little time to look or brain power to remember.
[pcworld.com]
probably should’ve looked into it before i mentioned the program. had some problems with it, didn’t run all my startup programs and i couldn’t figure out how to get them rolling in. maybe you’d have better luck.
Launchy is truly amazing! No need to spend time arranging shortcut icons or keyboard shortcuts, I just start typing my program and it finds it for me. It looks great and auto hides itself
. I like the calcy and explory plugins, but disabled foxy and weby. The Fx bookmark search from weby got in the way of my apps, and are best suited in the sidebar (or eventually places). Another excellent part of the app is that it remembers which programs you choose and gives them priority automatically, so you can get to the programs you want with fewer letters. The skins are nice, but I’m sticking with the standard. That search box was the one thing I liked with Google Desktop, but I didn’t like the files mixed in and other pieces. Simple, easy, excellent app!
Since I can run all my programs from Launchy, and use floating icons and window fold-up from DM2, I’ve created a taskbar-free interface. I just set my taskbar to auto-hide. Works well, but I do occasionally need to check the taskbar for tray icons etc.
BTW: Do you know how I could create desktop shortcuts for shutdown, logoff, standby…? I know there’s a way
Here’s how you can create desktop shortcuts for Shutdown and Restart:
[webtechgeek.com]