While the post has a lot of details about VS 2005 and the like, it pointed to a little tool called SlickRun from Bayden Systems. I had previously tried JetStart which gives more of a “Windows Vista” look to the Start menu but found it lacking.
SlickRun takes a different approach putting up a little window in the lower right corner of your desktop (image shown below) but click it and type in a “magic word” and it will start whatever you want to use. Since you control what you want to call things, you can create basic words like “vfp9” or “vfp8” or project-specific words like “clientx” if you want to start up a project in a particular directory. It also includes a quick little jot note function (accessible by the WinKey+J). If you don’t want it to appear on your window, you can also hide it in your taskbar (and pull it up by WinKey+Q)
So far I’m really liking it.
I absolutely love SlickRun. I have been using it for over a year now and it has made my life so much easier. I actually use it in conjunction with Launchy which is a good app launcher as well.