JustStartIt

A decent alternative to the Windows Start menu, JustStartIt aims to save time spent launching applications and programs, though some things failed to work during testing. The program, which docks in your system tray, lets you browse files and programs and add them to its main interface.

You can set up the files and programs to automatically launch at startup or simply type several letters into the box on top of the interface to launch. This approach is much easier than navigating and digging through the Start menu or Windows Explorer. However, hot key support would've been a nice addition to this free piece of software.

It's a shortcoming that JustStartIt is only able to launch EXE files. Also, we encountered an instance when the program generated an error. Despite those drawbacks, some users may find they prefer using JustStartIt instead of their PC's Start menu.