I've been installing a lot of stuff on my new laptop, and I've found that trying to simply reach the shortcut to most of my stuff in the Start menu takes about twenty to thirty seconds--about five seconds per click. This was getting really rediculous. I did a Google search and found this ..

 http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=259355

The solution was to change the properties for the start menu (right click the Start button, choose Properties, and with the Start Menu tab selected click the Customize button) so that "Highlight newly installed programs" is deselected.

I do actually like the highlights, but a) there's no real use for it when 95% of the gajillion things I've just installed ... has just been installed, and b) why on Earth doesn't Microsoft cache and optimize this stuff? We're talking about the Start menu here! The most visible part of Windows for ALL of its users!