The Windows Vista ^[1] start menu has definitely become quite useful, with the ability to search. Start++ pimps up the start menu and adds in some cool new features, which makes the start menu a one-stop place for finding weather updates, displaying your Google calendar agenda, viewing top stories in Digg and also the ability to send a tweet to twitter ^[2] right from the start menu.

In addition to the features above you can also search the web directly by starting searches using keywords such as g for Google, y for Yahoo, l for Live search, w for Wikipedia and so on.

Start++ also has support for Google Calculator, so the next time you want to do a calculation, instead of firing up the windows calculator, simply type in calc your calculation and Start++ will fetch the results from Google Calculator.

If you use several application to check on the weather forecast, you can easily ditch them, with Start++, weather updates are only few keystrokes away, type in weather along with your zip code to see current and future weather forecasts for your city.

Adding new keywords is quite a breeze and you can easily setup shortcuts for most used applications and websites.

You can also extend the features of Start++ by download several Plug-ins such as Digg quick view, which shows you a current overview of top digg stories, Google calendar plug-in to display your gcal appointments, a twitter plugin to tweet from the start menu and more.

Overall Start++ definitely packs a punch and makes the Windows Vista start menu a one-stop place for searching, weather and more. To top it this nifty utility is absolutely free for use.

Download Start++ ^[3] [via DownloadSquad ^[4]]