There are a lot of Application Launchers available and each has its own pros and cons. Launchbar Commander is a customizable Application Launcher that can be docked to the side of the screen lets you launch your favourite programs by configuring Buttons and Menus. According to its creator, it is “designed for power users who value efficiency over eye candy” but the program can also be modified by using appearance skins.

You can use Menus as well as buttons to launch your applications. The Menus can be hierarchical of any depth and different types. To add any shortcut to the launcher, you can simple drag and drop it into the launcher. It also supports Folder Links that can display the contents of the folder which can also be displayed based on certain criteria like naming patterns etc. The program has default configuration for Control Panel, My Documents and Start Menu. You can customize a lot of settings in the application. The settings may take some time in getting used to for the average user. You can customize the appearance of the Menus by using icons transparency effects, fonts and colors. It stores the docking bar configurations in self contained files so that you can easily switch between configurations or use them on other Computer. The program also supports Multiple Dock which is a useful feature. And when you don’t want them to take space on your Desktop, you can minimize them to the Tray mode.

If you are looking for an Application Launcher with not much fancy stuff, you can give this a try. The program is a freeware but the author request Donations. The program runs on Windows 2000/XP/2003/Vista/7.

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