Most of the applications can be started with the operating system, but this has the negative side effect of a prolonged system start.

Start My Day is a configurable program and media launcher for Windows. The software can be started with Windows or configured to do its workings at a specific time of a day.

start my day

The application can launch apps, websites and music automatically. Programs can be added by dragging and dropping the program executables (only .exe supported right now) on the main interface, or by clicking on the Add button to select an application in the file browser.

The web listing accepts websites in the .url format, which are only supported by Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. An option to add urls directly would have been handy, especially for users who work with another default web browser.

The music listing finally accepts mp3 music files. It will automatically generated a playlist file in WPL format. The configuration file is stored in C:\Users\Username\AppData\Roaming\Start My Day, which is unfortunate again, as it breaks the portability of the software program.

We have already mentioned that Start My Day can load all configured programs, websites and mp3 files on startup or a specific time of the day. The application does offer controls to launch them manually from the header bar as well. Helpful if users have missed the scheduled time of the day.

The biggest disadvantage of the application is the limited file type support. Being able to add other files to the launch would add tremendous value. A new category to load documents might be welcome by many users as well, as there is currently no option to do that.

Start My Day can be downloaded from the Windows Club website. It is compatible with Windows 7, and likely with previous Windows systems as well (the developer has not tested the program on previous versions).

The software program is driven by the global hotkey [CTRL SPACE] that opens the run box of the application launcher. Entering a char will show the first five hits in the container below and provide the means to scroll through the rest if there are more than five results.

Besides launching applications and files Key Launch can initiate Internet searches, open bookmarks, start Control Panel items, create a new email message, manage computer shutdown commands or open Internet addresses.

Every application launcher has to face off against Launchy. Key Launch is compatible to Windows Vista which Launchy is not according to the information on the Launchy homepage. Launchy on the other hand is Open Source and available for Linux which Key Launch is not.

Another advantage of Launchy is that users have created plugins and skins for the application launcher while Key Launch stands on its own as of now. Computer memory usage is similar for both application launchers with Launchy using a few additional Megabytes while running.

The software program uses groups that can contain links to files, folders or web resources. Each group can be designed differently. The web resources could for instance display only the link text while the software applications display only the icon of the software. Icons and text can be combined as well and there are numerous ways to alter the appearance of practically any item in a group.

8start makes use of so called categories which can contain a number of groups each. Categories can be flipped like pages which means it is possible to create a smaller interface that is making use of pages to contain the same amount of information than a larger interface.

The status of each partition of the computer system can be displayed in the interface as well. It can be used to quickly access a drive. Each item displayed, be it application, web resource, folder or partition can be loaded with a single left-click of the computer mouse.

The note taking application uses a tree structure for the note taking. The main interface contains the keywords which when left-clicked will open a bigger Word-like document that can contain text and pictures that can be formatted using basic word processing controls.

A keyboard shortcut can be configured to bring the 8start interface up when needed so that it does not have to be visible on the desktop all the time.

8start is a sophisticated software applications launcher that is compatible to all Windows NT operating systems from Windows 2000 to Windows Vista.