xfrosch -- I, too, had a major addiction to Dave's Quick Search Deskbar... Unfortunately, when I moved to XP, the widget looked like crap in the task bar and I stopped using it because, pathetic but true, ascetics matter to me.

The good news is that I get the same warm'n'fuzzy keyboard feeling using LaunchBar... Although I don't think it has the XML extensibility of DQSD...