Residing in your system tray, PS Hot Launch can act as a sort of replacement start menu. You can add applications and files to it as if you were creating a menu structure, and then punch it up by clicking on the icon. Far more useful is the hotkey ability though, which I use mostly for fodler launching. Just add a folder (or anything else), and toward the bottom of the app you can add a hotkey. I use the windows key + alt, and a letter most of the time, this makes sure I don’t conflict with any other hotkeys.

If you use a lot of folders, this applications will be a Godsend! I use quite a lot, since I use Xampp to do web development on my local machine, so i use a lot of directories for websites and such, all of which I can bind to hotkeys. Launching Firefox can also be easier than with Launchy, just press Win+Alt+F for example. That said, Launchy has some benefits of PS Hot Launch, but I use both side by side harmoniously.