In Search of a Windows version of Quicksilver

I use Quicksilver on my Mac like any other Mac user that knows about this gem. Want to find a website, file, folder, application , etc. just fire it up, type the first couple of words and you have a slew of choices to pick from. I wanted this really bad for my PC at work but didn’t have it. Then I fired up my favorite search engine and did a search and voila! I got a few choices. The first software similar to Quicksilver was Approcket. I didn’t actually get to download this one (it cost $1 and I don’t want to pay for this feature as helpful as it is. The second software I found was Colibri this one I did download. I tested it out and and like the interface. Its a bit more like Quicksilver in that it has what you searched for including an icon for the program, folder, etc. Next up was Launchy which I downloaded and tried out. The first issue I had was that I clicked on it and it seemed to disappear. Then I read the instructions which says you have to press the ALT SPACE to get the bar to popup. Its skinnable and fit in with my desktop quite well. Anyway, after pressing ALT SPACE I typed in my favorite program and it popped right up icon and all. It is really fast and you get a nice list of other possibilities. You can configure it to search specific folders o your computer. I was very impressed with it actually and it reminded me more of Quicksilver a bit more than Colibri did. make sure to check out the Tips and tricks section for what you can index including all your bookmarks. Quicksilver automatically index all this stuff but its also nice to be able to have some control over what is being indexed. I have to say that I’m pretty happy with Launchy and I’ve already made good use of it. Colibri and Launchy are both free.