I actually like WinXP's Personalized Start Menus (the feature where lesser-used programs and folders are automatically hidden but can be accessed when the menu's double-down arrows are clicked), but I can't get mine to work.  Here's what happened...

 

I accidentally accessed a number of Start Menu items that I don't often use, and I didn't like the fact that they were appearing on my Personalized Start Menu.  So, I went about finding out how to "reset" the Personalized Start Menu.  What worked was to switch the Start Menu view from Classic to the new XP version (right-click on the "Start" button, click "Properties," select the "Start Menu" radio button) and then clearing the list of Start Menu programs (right-click on the "Start" button, click "Properties," click "Customize" next to the "Start menu" radio button, and then click "Clear List" on the "General" tab).  For some reason, after I did this, when I went back to the Classic Start Menu view, all of my folders and icons were shown on the Start Menu.  Then, when I selected an item from the Start Menu and exited and re-entered the Start Menu, it was the only one that appeared unless I clicked on the double-down arrows to expand the Start Menu.  This was great...it looked like I could rebuild my Personalized Start Menu by selecting those items that I wanted to appear and they would gradually be added to the Personalized Start Menu.

 

This method worked fine until I restarted my computer, now every folder and program item is shown on the Start Menu and there's no indication of how to get the lesser-used items to be hidden.  I don't see the double-down arrows anywhere either.  The "Use Personalized Menus" option is still checked under "Advanced Start Menu options" (right-click on the "Start" button, click "Properties", click "Customize" next to the "Classic Start menu" radio button), so that's not the issue.  I thought that maybe Windows has to relearn which programs aren't used frequently, but it's been two days, and I thought some programs should've been demoted/hidden by now.  I've also verified this behavior on two other Windows XP machines, so either it's a bug in the OS or I just have to wait a while until menu items begin to be hidden again.

 

Any ideas?