When the Control Panel is added to the top section of the Start Menu as a cascading menu, you do not have to open the Control Panel folder itself to get any one item on it, you just treat it like a menu of items and click the one you want. It is much cleaner, much faster, and much easier. And I like the Recycle Bin there too. Since I installed a large enough hard drive, I no longer worry about cleaning it out very often (yes, there was a time when the fullness of the Recycle Bin determined whether I had enough hard disk space left to run a certain program), so I prefer having it totally accessible but out of sight.

There is a technique of using the Class IDs (CLSIDs) from the Registry to create icons for various things. I have listed some of the most useful below. If you want to look for more, and have the patience, you can sift through the very long list of these in the Registry (in HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID) and see if there is anything else there you want.

Use the right click menu to create a new folder, then rename the folder as follows. (You can create the folder right in the C:\WINDOWS\Start Menu folder.) The first line says what it is for, and the entire second line is the name to give the folder. In case display factors breaks up these lines, please note that each of the lines is unbroken and has no spaces in it. There are only zeros, and no letter-Os inside the curly brackets. It is better to transfer the name to your new folder by cut-and-paste, than by retyping it.

Control Panel:
Control Panel.{21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D}

History:
History.{FF393560-C2A7-11CF-BFF4-444553540000}

Recycle Bin:
Recycle Bin.{645FF040-5081-101B-9F08-00AA002F954E}

Printers Folder:
Printers.{2227A280-3AEA-1069-A2DE-08002B30309D}

The first three above — especially the Control Panel and History ones — have made my life much easier for the last many years. Have fun!

MORE COMPLETE LIST OF THESE
(Some of these don’t work in Win98, but do work in Win95. I’ve kept them on the list.)

Control Panel.{21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D}
Printers.{2227A280-3AEA-1069-A2DE-08002B30309D}
History.{FF393560-C2A7-11CF-BFF4-444553540000}
Scheduled Tasks.{D6277990-4C6A-11CF-8D87-00AA0060F5BF}
Recycle Bin.{645FF040-5081-101B-9F08-00AA002F954E}
Fonts.{BD84B380-8CA2-1069-AB1D-08000948F534}
Inbox.{00020D75-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}
Network Neighborhood.{208D2C60-3AEA-1069-A2D7-08002B30309D}
Briefcase.{85BBD920-42A0-1069-A2E4-08002B30309D}