He who is harry newton said on Tue, 24 Oct 2017 13:49:01 +0000 (UTC):

Thanks for that super not obvious suggestion which can only be borne from
experience that you had that I did not have!

At the moment, I'm tentatively anointing Bob as a genius ... because it
does appear to work and it does not appear to show most recently used
"apps" ... so it's confusing ... which is why you're the genius...
http://wetakepic.com/images/2017/10/24/runmru2d55fa.jpg

PROBLEM SUMMARY:
Commands typed into "start run" were not remembered.

SOLUTION SUMMARY:
Start Settings PC Settings Personalization Start

To turn off start-run memory, turn off "Show most used apps".
http://wetakepic.com/images/2017/10/24/personalization.jpg

This disables the reverse-order fedcba memory in the registry key:
HKCU\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Exp lorer\RunMRU
http://wetakepic.com/images/2017/10/24/runmru.jpg

To turn on start-run memory, turn on "Show most used apps".
http://wetakepic.com/images/2017/10/24/personalization2.jpg

This enables the reverse-order fedcba memory in the registry key:
HKCU\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Exp lorer\RunMRU
http://wetakepic.com/images/2017/10/24/runmru2d55fa.jpg

Hopefully, it doesn't show any idiotic "recently used apps" icons!

--
Added windowsxp just so that it would be archived in degagoogle forever so
others can find it in the future with a keyword search.