Windows 1809 START menu forgets new folder and changes in app list

I wanted to condense all office apps into one folder in the start menu instead of having them scattered throughout start in alphabetical order. I changed the name of the default 'Microsoft Office Tools' folder to ...Office 2019 and made a new folder inside this one named ...Office Tools placing the apps that were in there originally into the new folder while moving the main office apps from throughout start into the ...office 2019 folder. Everything seemed to behave as expected with all office apps in the ...Office 2019 folder when I clicked on start.

It seems a short time later (probably after a reboot) the apps are no longer in the Office 2019 folder but scattered again in ABC order throughout Start. When I right-click and 'Open File Location' the changes I made are still there but so too are new shortcuts to the office apps added outside the Office 2019 folder back in the original default location. I'm attaching screenshots of what my start menu folders look like showing the times I made the folders and then the times where the new original shortcuts were somehow brought back. Any ideas how to fix this would be appreciated.

There is a fundamental limitation with all Win 10 style start menus - Win 10's own and 3rd party ones.

If you have folders nested about 3 deep, the shortcuts therein are shown in the menu, but not the folders.
Thus, since I have deeply nested start menu folders in categories, I can see

Help
Help
Help
Help
....

readme
readme
readme
.....

etc - each one from a different program's subfolder.

If that's what's happening to you, it's not new, not an 1809 bug, it's a stupid design limitation.

Either work within the limits supported, or use e.g. Classic Shell (now Open Shell) start menu (free) which many here use, which works properly and so much better in so many respects.


(You can still also use Win 10's start menu with that installed - and it supports UWP apps but not tiles).