We all have seen how the native Windows Startup becomes so painfully in-adequate when you start installing a lot of programs. It will be nice to have customizable startup options so you get to the frequently accessed programs easily & quickly. We have seen some excellent application launchers like Launchy, Enso ^[1], etc. Still those are fin when you know what you want to open. But, you might even forget the programs you have installed for a particular task.

8start ^[2] is a portable startup program that is highly customizable. Keith has included this cool startup program in his Hall of Fame, Best of Everything ^[3] post and I totally agree.

Let’s look at the features it offers:

• A customizable keyboard shortcut to bring it up with a keystroke or you can access it by mouse or from the system tray
• Organize your shortcuts into groups & categories
• Create & configure buttons for all your favorite applications
• Create buttons for shortcuts, url favorites, files, folders and application links
• Buttons are customizable to different sizes and you can add them to Groups.
• Then you can organize groups into Categories such as ‘General’, ‘Development’, ‘Media’, etc.
• Custom skin support (transparent png)
• You can choose to display drive space for any drive of your choice
• Tree-Notes feature – full featured note taking option (I haven’t played much with this yet)

The initial setup may not be very intuitive or easy with drag & drop support or anything. But, once you have set it up the way you want it, it will be an indispensable one for a power user.

If you have been tired of your cluttered desktop icons crowding your beatiful wallpaper, you’ll appreciate this tool once you have everything setup. Again, a casual user might find this hard to use but for a power user it’ll be quite easy to figure it out.

I have been loving Enso Launcher but there are times I have to hit the Start Menu to dig out a program I can’t remember and 8start is going to help me greatly with it.

[image credits: 8start.com]

^[4]