After installing Launchy, you’ll basically never have to open your Start menu again. If you want to open Firefox, for example, simply press the customizable Launchy hotkey (I set mine to CTRL + Space, but the default is ALT + Space), type a few letters of the program you’re looking for, then press enter. If the wrong program is shown, use the arrow keys to find it in the list.

One downside to Launchy is that it can’t launch applications installed via the ClickOnce deployment method by default. ClickOnce is popular deployment solution for .NET applications, and is used by applications like MetroTwit and even my own BreakTaker.

Adding support for ClickOnce applications in Launchy is easy, just follow these instructions.

Step 1: Open Launchy by pressing the Launchy hotkey or opening its Program Files entry.

Step 2: Right click Launchy and select Options.

Step 3: Click the Catalog tab. The locations in “Directories” are the areas that Launchy will search for application shortcuts, and the “File Types” specify which types of shortcuts it will look for.

ClickOnce applications don’t use the standard .lnk extension for their shortcuts, they instead use the extension .appref-ms.

For each directory listed, select it and click the plus button (+) under File Types. Type *.appref-ms and press enter, and repeat for each directory.

Step 3: After you’ve added *.appref-ms to each directory, click the Rescan Catalog button. Click OK once Launchy has finished looking for new shortcuts.

That’s it! Launchy should now be able to locate ClickOnce applications stored on your computer.

The post How to Make Launchy Find ClickOnce Application Shortcuts first appeared on Techerator.

Launchy is an open source keystroke launcher for Windows and Linux that allows you to open documents, folders, bookmarks, installed software, and system utilities with a quick keyboard keystroke combination.

Once you have downloaded and installed Launchy, you can begin using it right away by hitting Alt+Space on your keyboard.  In the pop-up window, begin typing the name of the program you wish to launch.  Once Launchy has auto-completed the name, you can hit Enter and the selected program will start.

Launchy is very customizable, allowing the user to specify what items are indexed, what locations are indexed, how often they are indexed, along with different skin choices, plug-ins and many other settings.  To access the settings, bring Launchy forward with Alt+Space, right click the dialog and select Options.

Launchy also features a set of plug-ins that extend the features of the program.  A couple of my favorite Launchy commands are shown below.

Perform a Google search

A Google search is performed in the default web browser of the text entered after the Tab key is pressed, as shown below.

Google (tab) techerator

Open a URL

The URL entered after the tab is opened in the web browser specified, Firefox in this case.

firefox (tab) techerator.com

Display weather information

Local weather information will be displayed from Weather.com for the ZIP code entered.

weather (tab) 90210

Run command line commands

instead of going to Start -> Run -> cmd, simply enter cmd (tab) and the command you wish to run.

cmd (tab) ipconfig

Another handy feature in Launchy is the auto-completion of commands.  For the examples shown above, instead of entering firefox into the Launchy window, I can simply enter fire(tab) and it will auto-complete as Mozilla Firefox.

A complete list of commands that work within the Launchy window is available here.

I have become very attached to Launchy’s functionality and often find myself habitually pressing Alt+Space on any computer I use, at times finding to my dismay that Launchy is not installed.  I highly recommend this program to everyone.

The post Launchy: Never Use Your Start Menu Again first appeared on Techerator.