With fear I'm writing this, as I'm spreading the word about FARR's primary competition in its developer forum, so it's natural I care about my life and all that... Oh, well, just a little joke
So a new major version of Launchy is out, with quite some changes, primarily focused on the future multiplatform compatibility on the app, but bringing some other welcome additions to the table as well. So, first things first, Launchy is now written using Trolltech's Qt toolkit, which as you may know, is the driving force behind KDE desktop, and that means Launchy will be usable in Linux and Mac OS X in the future, which is a good thing for creating some competition in the other OS.
But what matters to users is features, and there are quite some to be found here. Launchy is prettier than before, sports a redesigned options interface, and allows more customization regarding the list and what you can do with the items showed there. It should be noted that the update breaks compatibility with old plugins, but silly names are preserved. I might give it a spin when I have some time
You don't like Launchy because you're a diehard FARR (or another launcher) user? Fine, I have another app to fill your expectations,
Autoruns. The hard working guys at Sysinternals are delivering a major new version of this fine tool, with the following improvements:
This major update to Autoruns shows an entry's raw launch string in its image details area, lists Explorer and IE COM classes names and icons, is aware of several more autostart locations, including additional shell extensions, Windows Vista scheduled tasks and Windows Vista Sidebar gadgets, and has better support for alternate online search engines.
Rogue programs and memory hogs will have a hard time hiding beneath Windows with version 9.0. Also, the Sysinternals' site has received a major facelift, looking better than before, and is more usable IMO.
via
Wikipedia (yeah, really) and
File Hippo 
