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One of the greatest UI features in Vista is the ability to hit Windows key, start typing the name of a program, hit enter, and it runs.

I want to be able to do this in XP. Is there a nifty program to do this?

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4 Answers

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Yes, there's Launchy.

I personally haven't used it, but it seems to be highly recommended.

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Looks about right! Thanks! – Paul Nathan Sep 18 '09 at 20:00
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ViStart - the Vista Start Menu for XP.

Launch Programs faster then ever before

ViStart dramatically decreases the time taken to search for programs by indexing your program shortcuts. Then you can simply type part of the program into the start menu and ViStart will "instantly" find it.

Find files faster than Vista

ViStart not only indexes programs but also files as well. Just type the file you are looking for and in miliseconds ViStart will return results (Up to 4 times faster than the orignal Vista start menu!).

alt text

ViStart is freeware

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This could be the solution you're looking for

http://www.launchy.net/

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Press Win+R. The Run dialog appears. Type the name of the program you want to run and Enter.

The first time you run a particular program you need to type its full name, but after you have run a program once, Windows will remember it. For instance, I often run CMD.EXE from the Run dialog. I press Win+R, then "c" and a dropdown list of all programs I've ever run from this dialog whose names begin with "c" appears. Down-arrow and Enter and CMD.EXE is running.

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the chief issue is that is not as "loose" in the name. IE, I can type "chrome", and Vista finds "Google Chrome". Whereas Run requires the actual executable name. – Paul Nathan Sep 18 '09 at 19:57
I use a file with @echo off echo "@ECHO OFF %2 %%^*" > c:\aliases\%1.bat echo Aliased %1 to %2. I called it alias.bat ;) – Phoshi Sep 18 '09 at 20:26

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