Monday, April 4, 2011

Access and Launch Windows Utilities the Easy Way

Tired of having to dig through the Control Panel (or deeper parts of the Start Menu) just to access and use various Windows Utilities? Enjoy having super quick (and easy) access to those utilities with Windows Utilities Launcher.
Note: Requires .NET Framework 3.5+ (link provided at bottom of article).
Setup
Windows Utilities Launcher is wonderfully simple to set up…just unzip the exe file, place it in a “Program Files” folder, and create a shortcut. Get ready for instant access goodness!
This is what you will see as soon as you start Windows Utilities Launcher… In the “Utilities Tab Area” you can quickly access the utilities shown with a single click of the button beneath each listing. Notice that you can easily minimize Windows Utilities Launcher to the “System Tray” or exit the program using the two buttons in the lower right corner. Windows Utilities Launcher will also display the version of Windows that you are using in the “Status Bar”.
Note: Windows (Computer) Info works on Vista & 7 only.




The “Settings Tab Area” lets you decide if you would like to have Windows Utilities Launcher start up with Windows each time and if you would like to have the app start as minimized.
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The “About Tab Area” provides basic app information and also a way to contact the developer.
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The Right Click Menus
Time for a closer look at the “Right Click Menu” setup for Windows Utilities Launcher. Here you can see the main menu… Notice that there are two additional apps that you can access here (Notepad & Calculator).
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Use the “Windows Utilities” sub-menu as an alternate way to quickly access individual Windows Utilities.
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Windows Utilities Launcher in Action
For our example we decided to access the “Date and Time Utility”. With a single click the “Date and Time” window opened very quickly. We had the same great result on any of the other utilities that we chose…quick and easy access.
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Conclusion
Windows Utilities Launcher is still in the earlier stages of development, but this little app is already demonstrating how easy it should and can be to access common Windows Utilities. This is definitely worth trying out…have fun!
Links
Download Windows Utilities Launcher (version 1.1)
Download the .NET Framework (version 3.5 SP1)
Works On: Windows XP – 7
Installed On: Windows Vista (32 bit), Service Pack 2

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