Most of my work begins with Windows+Space key. Thats the shortcut I have assigned for the Launchy tool.What lauchy does is it indexes shortcuts on your start menu, plus some other applications.
I have bunch of stand alone applications that i use often and i have added this to the indexing catalog. You can type and look for the application, and Launch. Once installed you would never go back to start menu or any applicatoin folder to launch.
I even use it on my development debug folder, So that i dont waste time in looking for an application to launch.
Download Launchy
