How to quickly start Programs like "regedit.exe" from the Windows 7 search bar using substring matching?

Question

The search bar in Windows 7 is very convenient to quickly start applications by pressing the Win-key and then entering the name of the application.

For applications with a Program Menu entry like Firefox, it is sufficient to type Fire and Firefox will be displayed in the Programs section of the search results.

For other applications like regedit.exe, I have to type the full command regedit before the correct choice regedit.exe appears.

Is there any way to have regedit.exe appear already when I have just entered a substring?

Please note: I have seen Add my applications to Vista’s Start Search, but I don't want to add anything to the Start Menu manually. This question is about if there is some configuration that can be tuned to make the results appear. I have also seen Search behavior of Windows 7 start menu, but my problem is not that the exe appears under Files, regedit.exe correctly appears under Programs, but it should appear already for a substring match.

Answer 1

You can enhance the capabilities of Windows 7 Search if you install a little freeware app called Classic Shell.

Then the Search functionality will not only list "regedit.exe" for substrings like "reg", it will also remember over time which option you launched most often for each search string and after a while you will see that option preselected by default when you type the same search string again. (It's extremely simple to implement, you just have to save some counters and do some comparisons, but it wasn't implemented)

Answer 2

I'm not sure if this helps but there is a useful article on Technet that describes how the search function works and what can be done to improve it's capabilities:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd744686%28WS.10%29.aspx#WS_SearchingfromtheStartMenu

As an alternative, you might investigate Slickrun http://www.fiddlertool.com/SlickRun/