What is the best (Windows) program launcher?

Question

One of the biggest general productivity boosters I've used is a good program launcher. I was a long-time user of SlickRun, and I've tried a few others. My current favorite is Executor - by far the best I've used.

Other options:

• Executor: My current favorite
• Vista Start Menu: Pretty good, actually, but Executor is similar (binds to Win+Z) and much more flexible.
• Quicksilver: For Macs only, but it seems to be the gold standard against which most other launchers are measured.
• Google Desktop: Press Ctrl+Ctrl and it's a quick launcher!
• AutoHotKey: Much,much more than just a launcher - more than I need, really.
• SlickRun: simple and unobtrusive
• Launchy: Seems to be the launcher of choice for many StackOverflow users :)
• Colibri: "Type Ahead - Information at the tip of your wings". Quite a cool concept.
• Many, many others. Scott Hanselman outlines some more here.

I realize that everyone will have their own preferences, but the question is: is there anything that really stands out in terms of speed, features, and especially productivity increase?

Answer 1

Explorer.exe

Answer 2

Launchy is pretty good; I use it on my XP machine. As a Quicksilver user I appreciate how Launchy lets me do inline google searches, open web bookmarks, and other goodies. You can train it to return the same results for your keystrokes, too, though the raw results can be pretty bogus right off the bat.

Answer 3

For me, a Vista Windows 7 user, nothing beats the Windows Key and just start typing. Although I'm using Launchy on older Windows installations.

Answer 4

I've used Vista's menu, Google Desktop search and Launchy. Lanuchy is my favorite now. It does it's job well and it's not cluttered with tons of unnecessary functionality. I wanted quick-launch application that does this single job well, now I have Launchy. It's that rare application that completely satisfy me. I like it's UI, I'm happy with it's behaviors.

Answer 5

Scott Hanselman (who is a big fan of app launchers) has a good review of some of the best ones out there. Well worth the time to take a look, the post is a year+ old and some of them have changed s little since, but still would serve as a good place to see some of the better ones out there. He even did a podcast of the subject as well where he reviews the good and bad of the best ones out there.

My preference is launchy. Love it.

Answer 6

If you want to go the built-in and fast way, might as well use the Start -> Run...

What I always use the Windows key + R keyboard shortcut to get it running.

Launching the Command Line is as fast as pressing Windows key + R and typing "cmd".

Answer 7

Windows start menu is slow as all heck. I want 0 delay between when I type and when I see my result. Launchy is very fast, and is very smart about matching.

It essentially puts wildcards between every letter, so you can just type bits and pieces of what you want to match. So "psh" would match PowerSHell

It also remembers your selections, so you can type "a", select anything from the dropdown that contains an "a", and next time you type "a" it will remember your selection. Quite slick.

Answer 8

I prefer just making a custom toolbar folder and placing it on the taskbar. Make the taskbar a little taller, turn off the text labels, turn on large icons.. and you've instantly got a Mac OS X style dock.

I set up one toolbar with a dozen of my most frequently used programs, and another with common folders (My Computer, Program Files, My Documents, CD Drive, etc).

You can also drag a toolbar to another edge of the screen to put it wherever you like.

Lifehacker has a simple video tutorial on how to make one.

Answer 9

I use FingerTips which also has other useful features.

Use Fingertips to get things done, fast: - Slick Twitter Client (new!) - Add Information To Microsoft Outlook - Open Specific Folders In Microsoft Outlook - Surf Quickly To Your Favorite Websites - Open Websites Directly From Fingertips - Let Fingertips Detect URL's On The Clipboard - Open Your Favorite Documents - Start Applications - Paste Text From The Clipboard, Unformatted - Type Text Way Faster By Typing Only The Acronyms - Use Fingerprint to Print Labels Extremely Fast - Start Menu applications are turned into commands automatically (new!) - Use scripting in Fingertype (new!) - And more...

Answer 10

Win+R, but it's not enough by itself. On the top you should have a folder with all your favorite shortcuts, and have your System Environment Path mapped to that folder.

I have all my most frequently used applications mapped including: word, excel, ps (photoshop,) np (notepad++,) vs (visual studio,) ff (firefox,) wc (warcraft 3,) diff (winmerge,) etc etc.

Mini applications are good, but you will appreciate the precision and smoothness of this method after a while.

Answer 11

I use Enso. It's free, pretty fast and it has nice interaction with the user.

Answer 12

The Quick Launch bar. Everything i remotely need gets an icon on there, it stretches the whole top of me screen from side to side and has about 40-60 icons on it, all readily accessible and easily distinguishable from each other. Why would i need a program that launches other programs? Come on. Use Win+R if you feel really needy.

Answer 13

SlickRun has been my preferred choice for many years.

Answer 14

I personally am a big AutoHotKey fan. I like it because I have found that there are really only a handful of programs that I use regularly and I can use AHK to easily create hotkeys for all of them. I prefer hotkeys because they allow single keystroke access!

Also as an added benefit AHK allows for text replacement, i type "-Mike" and I get:

Mike Thomas
Software Architect
The Master's College
xxx.xxx.xxxx

I can have multiple canned signatures that work in any situation!

As the question author noted, AutoHotKey can do much more than that... but it doesn't mean that you have to use all of its complex features.

Oh, I also really like how it is configured through a text file! Much easier than a GUI and very easy to share settings between computers.

Answer 15

I use TurboLaunch from Savard software. It has a pop-up dialog on a hot-key combination, and lets you drag icons into it from quick setup. You can organize your icons into folders.

Been a happy user for many years now...

Answer 16

SuperLauncher is the best! I have tested most Windows launchers and I even like some but the problem with all launchers is that either they make it difficult to input new shortcuts or they go ahead and index my entire PC. The indexers do not support hotkeys, and the ones that do support hotkeys make me type in URLS, or browse my PC in order to add new shortcuts. With SuperLauncher I drag and drop what I realize is becoming repetitive. I simply drag, drop, and either assign a hotkey or list it on the one-click popup menu. Plus I can group shortcuts which means I can open two folders for backup reasons, or I can open all the files that I need to complete a step-by-step procedure, all with one keystroke. I guess I really love it because of the drag & drop. It is just simple like software should be. Overall it allows me to work fast, and I mean really fast.

I totally recommend it. You can find SuperLauncher at: http://www.pcwinsoft.com/superlauncher/

Regards, Alex Ferri

Answer 17

On Windows XP I use SlickRun, on Vista the Windows key is mostly adequate (but I also have SlickRun installed). What I like about SlickRun, is the way you can map a key word to any action, for example opening a particular web page, launching an application or opening a document. This I have found immensely handy at work and has saved me a huge amount of time.

Answer 18

Find And Run Robot. The main benefit: customizable weighting of results.

Want .bak files never to show up in the results? Just add -999 score to all .bak files.

Result list gives you access to the Explorer context menu (and more).

Plugins and aliases are very useful, too.

Answer 19

Currently I use Everything to search file and launch application.