metaViper

For some people it’s more severe, but anyone who uses Microsoft’s ubiquitous Windows operating system has to deal with an ever-growing Start Menu. One way to pull the most important applications to fore is with the quick launch toolbar, but that takes up precious screen real estate, fills up fast, and presents a lot of symbols to browse. On the other hand some people give up any semblance of organization and clutter their desktop with a maze of shortcuts.

Launchy. It’s a free program (though the author welcomes donations!) that launches applications by asking for a keyword from the user. It runs in the Windows background in a small footprint, and pushing Alt+Space activates the Launchy query box.The flexibility of the program is what drew me in. It’s capable of indexing a variety of file types. By default it scans the Start Menu for .lnk shortcut files but you can add directories and file types. I use it to instantly access parts of my shared drives, and stored pdf and word files. It reduces the amount of time I spend hunting through my computer’s file system for information. Vipers are opportunistic creatures after all :-}

Launchy also has a plugin development community and has generated buzz in the blogosphere.

Congratulations to Josh Karlin for creating such a useful tool, keep up the great work!