I have always liked Quicksilver or the search function in Mac OSX 10.4/5 how you can invoke a search bar using keyboard shortcuts and start typing for a program you want to launch (as well as other options). In Windows Vista I found the search in the start menu bar to be some what disappointing. It’s slow and the results were not very accurate to what I wanted. Now I have found a way through the search bar settings to only return a programs in the search list. Before I was using a program called Launchy to do the same thing.

Start Menu Properties

Go to

Right click Start bar > Properties > Start Menu tab > Customize (Next to "Start menu")

The options for search are:

• Don’t search for files – don’t search system files
• Search entire index – Index files only
• Search this user’s files – files located within c:\Users

Search Properties

Set the following:

Search communications – off
Search favourites and history – off
Search files – Don’t search for files
Search programs – on

How to speed up Windows Vista start menu search article
Blacktree – Quicksilver website
Launchy website

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