then you have to deal with cache invalidation, you need to have triggers in all places that change the look of the menu, for example when you install a new program, change the OS language, etc.
This is talking about the Windows NT Workstation (or Windows 95 etc.) banner on the left of the original start menu. It doesn’t change when you add programs, and I don’t think the edition branding changes between languages (at least the French versions are still Windows NT Workstation / Server, and if the French didn’t force Microsoft to localise the edition names, I doubt any else would manage). So you could just render once on startup / first menu draw then cache the bitmap. Or just prerender the bitmap as a graphical resource and store it on disc…
