QuickLaunch alternative for Windows 11

[dv8]

Hello everyone!

Apparently, the last time I've been here was 13 years ago! How time flies...

What made me come back is the Microsoft's stupid decision to remove the QuickLaunch from Windows 11.  On all the previous versions I used to have a QuickLaunch toolbar on my taskbar and had all the shortcuts for my different projects neatly arranged in sub-folders.  After this feature was removed, I tried the ExplorerPatcher but at some point it started getting flagged by the Defender. And it added a lot more things that were not necessary for me. I only needed the QuickLaunch.

So after a lot of frustration i decided to make my own and remembered the dear old AutoIt!

The script below uses an INI file with the same name to get which folder you want to use as a QuickLaunch and creates a 5px by 5px simple GUI at the top left corner of the screen, which sits on top of the other windows. The GUI has a menu with sub-menus and items corresponding to the sub-folders and the .lnk files in the QuickLaunch folder. It tracks the position of the mouse and when it gets to the top-left corner it clicks on the GUI to display the menu.

Since it loads the folder only once at the start, there is a CRTL+ALT+R hotkey combination to quickly restart the app and reload the shortcuts if you have made any changes.

CTRL+ALT+X is for exiting the app.

When compiled, the executable is a little over 1MB and uses about 8-9MB of RAM

I'm sharing it here hoping it would be as useful to you as it is to me.

Best wishes for the new 2025 from Bulgaria!

Edit: Forgot to mention it uses the ModernMenu UDF by Holger Kotsch

QuickLaunch.ico QuickLaunch.ini QuickLaunch.au3

ModernMenuRaw.au3

Edited January 13 by dv8