1. A computerized method of locating and initiating an application on a computer, said method comprising: displaying a first user interface (UI) element to a user of the computer, said first UI element including a search field for receiving a user-entered search term, said search term comprising one or more characters representative of an application to be initiated on the computer; searching, based on the search term, an index containing metadata representative of one or more applications installed on the computer to locate the application to be initiated; and displaying a second UI element associated with the first UI element, said second UI element including a window for displaying results of searching the index and for receiving user input to select the application to be initiated from the search results, and wherein said computer is responsive to user input via the second UI element for initiating the selected application installed on the computer.