Windows XP: a new start menu "StartEase2"

StartEase 2: Find and Launch Programs Effortlessly

by Tim Smith

The Start menu in Windows XP is a pretty good program launcher, but it easily gets cluttered, making it difficult to navigate. On more than one occasion I've found myself going from menu to menu looking for a specific program without success. Vista's Start menu is an improvement but still isn't very easy to pilot.

In 2006 we released StartEase, an application launcher that solves Windows navigation problem by putting just your programs into an A-to-Z button list. In addition, you can easily search for programs. As soon as you start typing in the search box you'll see a list of matching programs that gets progressively smaller the more you type, narrowing the results.
This update, StartEase 2, offers many enhancements to the original program. These enhancements include:

• Improved performance: Now the A-to-Z buttons populate much more quickly

• New user interface

• A pane that displays common programs like your Web browser and mail client

• A pane to place your favorite files for quick launch

• Google search

• URL launcher

• Open a program in the command prompt or execute entered command

• Find programs contained in the Windows search path

This is on top of all the great features found in the original StartEase:

• Easy interface to add and remove programs to buttons

• The ability to exclude and include programs from a specific directory or by name (like all "Uninstall" programs)

• Bookmarks to easily access favorite programs

• Lists of programs that were recently run

• Lists of programs from specific searches

• And more! (full story)