Software startup order

I have certain programs start up automatically when I boot and these are in the startup folder. However the order in which they appear in the startup folder is not the order in which they open. EG I like a shortcut folder to open first,then windows explorer then outlook and this is the order they appear in in the startup folder and then I like them to appear in that order on the start bar. However Explorer opens first and then the shortcut folder then outlook so it is out of sequence. Is there any reason for this? Do some programs have a higher priority than others when they start up? Can I change the order any other way? I am using NT4 with office 2000. Thanks