any way to shrink the start menu size?

Hello,
I'm just wondering if there's a way to make the start menu smaller? I have practically nothing on the start menu aside from the Computer, Control Panel and Devices and Printers buttons. I don't want to use a 3rd party program like ClassicShell cause I'll lose the search bar, which i use a lot in the start menu. here's what my start menu looks like Wed25-Jan.png picture by cruzer_san - Photobucket any idea how to get rid of all that useless space?

Thank you for the welcome and your tips guys, although i've pretty much customized the start menu to the maximum already.

I did though, through the link Brink gave Start Menu - Change Height shortened the menu a little bit more but its still big and over-sized. It would be nice if I can shrink it all the way down to the "All Programs" button, just a nice slim start menu with the search bar below. I could do that in XP but i guess since 7 has that list scrolling feature in the All programs menu, it wouldn't be reasonable to have that slim of a menu if 7 cant pop out a menu beside the arrows

It seems pretty customizable, thanks. But in the free version it's like 10 times bigger than the default menu and you cant change much other than the skins. It filled like more than half my screen upon opening @.@. I'll probably find and try the pro version see what features i can get to shrink it down. If all fails i'll just have to stick with the plain default menu.
Thanks again for the link.

Just a quick note on the original post: Classic Shell does have a search box. You can use it to search the contents of the start menu, the control panel, the PATH environment variable, and the GOD MODE items. It can be extended with third-party search tools like Agent Ransack and Google to make it look for files or to search the Internet.

Thanks a many Ivo!
I am really satisfied with my new menu now Fri.png picture by cruzer_san - Photobucket I didnt really wanted to use a 3rd party program cause I didnt want it to take up any resources, but for this, it's much less memory usage than what i used to use was Launchy. Also for the SratMenu7 that Brink linked didn't do much. It's more like an explorer for start menu where it opens up everything for you to see. It's super huge. But then again, thank you all for sharing your knowledge.