Searching from the start menu

When i first saw the new start menu I'll admit that i thought it was overkill.  Who in the world wants to search from the start menu after all.

But i'm finding that it's actually pretty useful.  In the days of yore when i wanted to launch Excel or the WDK documentation i had to dig through this long list of folders to find what i wanted.  Is Excel under the "Office" or "Microsoft Office" sub-directory in the start menu?  I know the WDK documentation has WDK in the name, but where.

The new start menu actually makes this much easier.  Hit the Windows key and type in "WDK" (after you've installed the WDK beta on your Vista machine) or "excel".  It searches through the contents of the start menu and lists all the items that contain that word.  Usually the executable with that name is first.

It can be a little slow, but i have to admit it's actually causing me to use the start menu more rather than learning the real exe name and starting the program from the Run dialog.

Comments

• Anonymous
  June 09, 2006
  well... i think quick launch or keyboard shortcuts are more easier and faster than this whole search thing.
  
  The advantages? Quite a few. First of all, frequently used applications - WDK, excel, word etc. are at most one click away, and second, I don't have to spare that extra CPU cycle for any desktop search engine - be it google, copernic, MSN or this new VISTA thing.
  
  Now why would one care for all those CPU cycles? I do because I tend to run 3 to 4 virtual machines at a time - that's as good as my whole lab I need to develop my drivers. :)
  
• Anonymous
  June 12, 2006
  The comment has been removed