Quick access to start menu - and much more!
Real man dont click - and I take it seriously :)
I really prefer to use my keyboard - well, most people that write lot of scripts or are programming prefers the same. There are however some tasks where it is prefered to use mouse - for example start menu. You need to click on start (or hit winkey), navigate to programs, find company, select product, click on correct link...
Well, its not really good. But there is one easy solution for this - it is called Launchy.
This is definition from Launchy`s homepage:
"Launchy indexes the programs in your start menu and can launch your documents, project files, folders, and bookmarks with just a few keystrokes!"
And thats all - you install it, it will index your start menu (plus favorites etc.) and from that moment you can start using it. It is same as start menu indexing you can see in Windows Vista, however does work in Windows XP and it provides you additional features.
Just hit predefined key combination (default Alt+Space is not best, because it is used by system to open window menu (Restore, Minimize etc.), type some text (for example Vis for Visual Studio) and this is what you get:
If it wont automatically show what you want, just hit down key - next time it will remember your selection.
You can also use it for quickly accessing favorites in IE:
You can use it to navigate to different web pages:
You can even use it as calculator :)
Or you can predefine your own shortcuts:
Launchy is really small and simple - but it can completely change the way you access programs on your computer.