Launcher Portable

Juggling numerous applications, documents, photos and other files can be difficult without resorting to personal assistants. There are many software solutions out there can be tried, from customizing the Start menu to exclude unnecessary items to creating a personalized list of apps to launch.

Quich app launchers have the roles of organizing your favorite programs and files in a single place where they can be easily deployed. Launcher Portable is such a tool. It doesn't require installation and can be stored on a USB thumb drive alongside portable apps to effortlessly run them on any PC without setup.

The control panel of the program is represented by a chrome grid that contains multiple boxes for storing the shortcuts of your favorite tools. You just have to drag and drop documents, photos, executables or even folders in a box, in order to automatically set up its shortcut. From this point on, the item can be launched by clicking its assigned shortcut.

Special icons are available in the right-click menu of Launcher Portable, where you can add shortcuts to the Windows Control Panel, printer, network locations, Recycle Bin and other locations. Moreover, you can create shortcuts to PC power options, such as shutdown, reboot or hibernate.

The grid can be enlarged or shrank by specifying the number of columns, rows, pages and frames, together with the orientation and Chevron (grid's navigation bar) position. You can make the grid auto-hide and adjust its opacity, icon settings, background color, sounds, and popup options. Keyboard hotkeys can be activated too.

The quick launcher worked smoothly on Windows 10 in our evaluation and had low impact on the system's performance. The grid can use some visual improvements but, apart from that, Launcher Portable is an intuitive tool with practical configuration settings to help you create a list of favorite files, folders and programs to launch with one click.