http://www.doxiware.com/products/smartstartmenu/

What I’m talking about is creating a Windows Toolbar. You should try it!

Here’s how:
1. Create a folder wherever on your computer, with whatever name.
2. Fill that folder with shortcuts to what ever (create shortcuts by right-click>New>Shortcut and/or copy and paste shortcuts from your start menu)
3. Unlock taskbar (blue bar on bottom in XP) by right-clicking taskbar and unchecking “Lock the Taskbar”
4. Create new toolbar by right-clicking taskbar>Toolbars>New Toolbar…
5. Select folder you created. It will now appear on the rightside of the taskbar (by the clock).
6. Drag the toolbar onto your desktop (don’t drag onto program). It’ll become a box window.
7. Drag the box onto the side of your screen (either left, right or top) and it’ll dock itself.
8. Right click it to control it. For example, large/small icons, text/no-text, autohide/no-autohide, always on top or not, etc.

It’s fast and you can create many of them (just repeat steps). You can dock them together or separately. You can also just make them a part of your start menu.

It’s just not flashy, and doesn’t have variable icon sizes (just two sizes). But very useful nevertheless.

Get it at: http://www.mirco-sys.dk

And I, too, have tried Launchy/FARR/SlickRun, but found that I need a program launcher that is more static and organized, not so free-form. I use two programs that have been around for years but never seem to make it on anyone’s radar: DonationCoder’s Launch Bar Commander and PowerPro 4.8 by Bruce Switzer. With the former I have a thin (25-pixel-high) stay-on-top strictly-text Mac-like toolbar at the top of the screen with drop-down menus and sub-menus that organize and sub-organize the dozens and dozens of programs that I have on my computer. With the latter I have a pop-up graphic-icon button-bar that hides at the bottom of the screen and has the couple-dozen programs I use most often (and, this program falls into the “geeky” stage where the more you delve the more you find that it does). Interestingly, each program can have multiple toolbars which can be either text-based or graphic-based – I use them according the way I view their strengths. Your mileage may vary…

I suppose it depends how many apps you have on your computer but Launch bar’s/Menu’s are a thing of the past for me, they are just too inefficient if you have a lot of software installed.