Launchy solves the fundamental weakness shared by most application launchers; intrusiveness. Unlike other products that use launch bars or tray icons, Launchy is invisible until you hit a special hotkey combination. By default this is Alt- Space.
Hitting the hot key combination brings up a small window into which you type the name of the application you are looking for.
You rarely even have to type the full name; mostly all you need do is just type a couple of letters. Launchy instantly displays on a find-as-you-type basis, any program that matches the letters you typed in.
Its power lies in the fact that it’s lightning fast. When I type the letter "E"I instantly see all programs whose name contains the letter E. There are quite a few as you can imagine. If I then type in the second letter "X" the list shortens immediately to only those programs that contain "EX". By the time I type in the "C" the list is down to one program, Excel itself. Hitting Enter then launches the program and at the same time the Launchy window disappears. The whole thing takes less than 2 seconds.
By default Launchy only searches files in your Start Menu folders. You can however, configure it to handle any file types and search any folders. So Launchy could be used to launch web link shortcuts or even your MP3 files. Configuration is easy; just right click on the Launchy Window.
Launchy is a program that’s so useful and so easy to use that you’ll wonder how you ever worked without it. Try it, you’ll love it.
http://www.launchy.net/ Free Open Source, Windows 2000 and later, 643KB.
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