LaunchIt NOW! Plus Editor's Review

LaunchIt Now! is a program launching utility designed to help you organize your programs' shortcuts into groups in order to have quick access to your most frequently used programs.

During the installation, the program automatically scans and loads the shortcuts found in the following locations: 'Desktop', 'Programs', 'My Computer', 'Control Panel', 'Administrative Tools', 'Internet Favorites', 'My Documents', 'My Music', 'My Pictures', creating groups of icons. Icons in each group can be customized according to your needs using the context menu. Icons can be added, deleted, replaced, renamed, copied, pasted, saved and ordered by several criteria. The good thing is that you can drag-and-drop icons to any existing category.

The interface is very appealing, well designed and it lets you configure the way you want to see your groups and icons displayed. You can display icons in a group as horizontal, vertical lists, as tiles or as thumbnails. The icon groups are displayed in tabs. These tabs can be placed on the left, right, top or bottom of the window and you can also customize them. The program window can be set to stay on top of all all windows.

The 'Quick Configuration' tool allows you to copy shortcuts, URLs or files (with full path) to any existing tab. The 'Preferences' tab allows you to customize the program: hotkey configuration, colors and themes, style and position, window properties, updates.

The program features three add-ons which come with the original installation kit:
'Cleanup NOW' erases all your recent documents in order to ensure your privacy: Internet Cache, Cookies and History, Recycle Bin, recent Documents List, etc.
'Revealpassword NOW' will allow you to see passwords hidden by asterisks. You can only reveal passwords entered in programs other than Web browsers: I tried to retrieve email passwords from online forms, but no luck.
'Shutdown NOW' allows you to quickly turn off, set to 'Hibernate' or 'Stand By' log off and restart your computer. Many more add-ons can be downloaded from the producer's Website, once you have registered the program.

Pluses: Within ten minutes I was able to customize my icon groups for a quick access and my desktop is cleaner that ever. I can find programs quickly without having to browse the 'Start Menu' for a program which doesn't have a shortcut on my desktop. The program can be docked to any of the four screen edges or it will reside in your tray. And in case you get lost , you can use the very comprehensive and well structured 'Help' section.

Drawbacks / flaws:

In conclusion: A very impressive utility which can save you time if you are working in a busy environment.

version reviewed: 2006