Brandon Paddock, who works on Search on the Windows dev team, took some time away from the office to develop a very useful add-on to Windows Vista’s already amazing search capabilities. In Windows Desktop Search for Windows XP, there was a functionality called “Deskbar Shortcuts” that allowed you to associate words and phrases with commands or searches you executed on a regular basis. Brandon has brought that functionality to Windows Vista with his Start++ tool.
For instance, using Start++, Windows Vista’s Start Menu Search Bar becomes an internet search tool wherein you input pre-assigned keywords or phrases and your search terms, then have it conduct a search using engines like Wikipedia, Live Search, or even the Internet Movie Database. I can configure Start++ so that when I type “w Windows Vista” into the Start Menu Search Bar when Start++ is running, it will open up a browser window in Wikipedia with the search results for “Windows Vista”.
Start++ can also serve as a command line interface to open specific applications or perform other tasks. For example, you might use it to initiate playback of specific songs or artists in Windows Media Player. I can configure it so that typing “play switchfoot” puts all corresponding tracks on my system into an .m3u playlist and opens Windows Media Player with the tracks ready for playback.
Start++ comes with a configuration guide to that to get you started customizing it. You can of course can add your own shortcuts and commands as well.
Go here to the latest release of Start++.