I wasn't planning on doing a countdown to Windows Vista until yesterday, and though there are piles of articles out there I could link to about Vista's failings, it seems unfair to focus on that for the week leading up to its release. Maybe I'll alternate days. Today I bring some tips and info for those who are all jazzed for Redmond's new baby.

First a tip from the How-To Geek on the Built-in Quick Launch Hotkeys in Windows Vista. Here's how it works: When you have some programs in your Quick Launch menu, each one will automatically be assigned a number--1, 2, 3, etc. from the leftmost icon to the right--and pressing the Windows key and that number will launch that program. Head over to the How-To geek for a more thorough explanation. Handy!

Another handy feature is Vista's built-in Snipping Tool, about which Lifehacker gives us the low-down. It's a huge improvement on Windows 95 and XP's nearly nonexistent screenshot functionality, though not, as Lifehacker's Gina Trapani points out, as robust as some third-party tools like the venerable SnagIt or my lightweight and free favorite FastStone Capture. Still, for basic screen-capping needs, the Snipping Tool is an invaluable and obvious bundled app.

Finally, you may have heard some of the huffing and puffing over Vista's thoroughly integrated DRM technologies. I won't get deep into it now, but if you want an overview Wikipedia is, as ever, a great resource. If you're concerned about Vista's DRM, you may want to check out Windows Vista Content Protection - Twenty Questions (and Answers) at the official Windows Vista Blog. In it, Dave Marsh, Vista's Lead Program Manager in charge of video technologies, says "It's important to emphasize that while Windows Vista has the necessary infrastructure to support commercial content scenarios, this infrastructure is designed to minimize impact on other types of content and other activities on the same PC." It's a pretty one-sided article, as you might imagine, but I suggest you read it and judge for yourself.

Do you have a tricked-out quick launch bar on your taskbar? The quick launch bar has its benefits and drawbacks, but it can certainly make it easier to launch your most often-used applications with the click of a mouse. Although I still prefer the speed of a text-based launcher, there are days when I want to do everything with my mouse and for that I like having a nicely organized quick launch toolbar.

But the quick launch toolbar is extremely simple, and definitely has limitations. If you want to supercharge your quick launch toolbar, consider running True Launch Bar, which is like quick launch on steroids.

Using True Launch Bar you can easily organize your quick launch icons into a menu system, using icons, text, or both. In fact, it uses the same directory structure as the quick launch bar, so upon installing it will immediately show you what you already had there. You can of course configure quick launch menus using a folder structure under your quick launch folder, but using True Launch bar the process is made much easier, and you're able to customize the look and feel of your menus in a way that Windows doesn't allow you to do by itself.

True Launch Bar is also extensible, and has a wide range of available plugins to allow you to show pertinent system information in your taskbar.

True Launch bar is shareware with a 30-day trial period. It costs US$19.90 to purchase.

[Update] As John points out in the comments, there's a free version called Free Launch Bar that I totally missed. It has many of the features described above, and is completely free. Thanks John!

Lifehacker has a great tip on launching your most-used programs really quickly. It relies on the little-known (well, I didn't know it, at least) fact that when the Windows Start menu is open, pressing a letter on your keyboard will launch the first "pinned" shortcut that begins with that letter. Armed with this knowledge, you can prefix the names of shortcuts pinned to your XP Start menu with unique letters to make launching any of your 26 favorite programs as quick as pressing the Windows key and a letter. Very awesome.

Do you carry all of your essential apps with you on a keychain USB drive? Wouldn't it be nice if you could pop your drive into a USB port and launch all of those apps with the click of a button? Lucky for you, Lifehacker is running a great tutorial called Quicklaunch your USB workspace. It's a quick and easy guide that will show you how to set up Autorun and a batch file on your flash drive to make it do your bidding as soon as you plug it in. It's Windows-centric, though--any tips from the Mac or Linux nomads out there?