I'd run into this as a problem because I'd set the launchpad to not launch because I didn't want it running at startup and didn't need another thing cluttering up the desktop that I'll use once in a blue moon. As a result I found that I couldn't get
to my personal shares on the server. I'm now forced to run it, but am still finding little problems like the fact that my iTunes sync (also running at startup) fails intermittently because it sometimes starts before the launchpad manages to kick in and
sort out my connections to the server. I did try making my password on the server the same as my workstation but this seems to make no difference.
In short, I'm not 100% convinced by the new approach, but it would certainly be nice to be able to run the launchpad minimised at startup for those of us who don't plan to actually use it as a UI very often.
thanks
Mike