In both Windows 2000 and Windows 98, sometimes when I open up a sub-menu of the start menu (say, Start/Programs/Audio), the icons needed to paint the menu aren't cached. So instead of drawing the item names and filling in the icons later, the system briefly but irritatingly locks up while the hard disk churns and Explorer re-loads the list of icons before drawing the menu.

This happens far too frequently for my tastes. For instance, more than once per day. I don't know why it happens at all, let alone with such irritating frequency.

Are there any work-arounds to prevent this "freeze"? When I open a menu I want it to just be there, whether the icons are in the cache or not. In fact, to work around this, I'd happily give up having icons in the start menu at all. Just the names would be fine. Does anyone know of a way to do this?