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Nov 13 2008

RunFast

One of the great little utilities I use is RunFast, a free, simple tool that allows you to launch applications using customizable shortcut commands, known as aliases. It’s a perfect example of a simple tool that does it’s job and does it well.

Once installed, RunFast stays in your system tray, so you can simply hit Ctrl+R and it shows a tiny little window with a single textbox to enter your alias, such as when I want to launch the awesome Paint.NET:

runfast

RunFast is completely customizable, as shown here in its Settings window (notice that you can change the RunFast hotkey from Ctrl+R to whatever you like):

runfast-settings

Creating and editing aliases is pretty straightforward, with you giving the alias a name and mapping it to the application it should launch:

runfast-new-alias

Like I said, RunFast is a great tool, but I’m sad to say its maker, Idiogen Software, has closed shop, literally. Their web site used to redirect to a furniture store and they are nowhere to be found. I really don’t want to see RunFast just die like that, so I’m making it available for download from here:

Download RunFast

Enjoy.

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  • http://webgambit.com Karthik

    Sounds almost exactly like SlickRun. But SlickRun can open folders in explorer too. Thats invaluable :)

  • http://stevenharman.net Steven Harman

    You might want to check out Launchy… its the closest thing I’ve found to QuickSilver (OSX) but its for Windows and Linux.

    Like RunFast and SlickRun, Launch allows you to define aliases, but it also auto-magically detects installed applications, folder directories, etc… Oh, and its got tab-completion.

    And one more thing – did I mention its FREE (as in beer and speech)! http://www.launchy.net/

  • http://flux88.com Ben Scheirman

    I use both Launchy and slickrun. Launchy is great for indexing the start menu (I literally NEVER open it any more), but it sucks for launching common programs & folders, which is where slickrun comes in handy. I setup "sql" to open sql management studio "vs" to visual studio,

    I setup "app-qa" and "app-prod" for various links to applications.

    Launchy is a resource hog as well. Slickrun generally is pretty tiny.

  • http://stevenharman.net Steven Harman

    @Ben,

    I also use Launchy to map "vs" to VisualStudio and "sqlm" to Sql Server Mgr Studio… and lots of other shortcuts for things like my "projects" directory where all my src code lives, gmail, yadda-yadda.

    You can configure such key-words in the "Runny" and "Webby" plugins (which are included in the default install).

  • http://www.techtoolblog.com Tim

    @Karthik – slick run can open folders, as least it does for me :)