I'm unable to select additional options (such as PolyStar) for the Rectangle
tool, which should appear when you click on the lower right corner. They don't
appear. I have an educational version of Flash MX 2004, on Windows XP Home. Has
anyone encoutered the problem? How to fix this? Is there any other way to
access that tool?

Thanks!

1)
do you see a small triangle at the lower right corner of your rectangle tool?
if not, the polystar tool might not added to your tools panel.
you can check it through menu
Edit - Costomize Tools Panel
make sure the polystar tools is added to the box where rectangle tool located.


2)
check if you got these 3 files (PolyStar.jsfl PolyStar.png PolyStar.xml) in
the following folder:
C:\Documents and Settings\user\Local Settings\Application
Data\Macromedia\Flash 8\en\Configuration\Tools

*username is the current user account you logged in on your pc
if any of files above doesnt exist, it might not installed properly,
try copy the files from:
C:\Program Files\Macromedia\Flash 8\en\First Run\Tools
to paste at:
C:\Documents and Settings\user\Local Settings\Application
Data\Macromedia\Flash 8\en\Configuration\Tools

if you cant find it from:
C:\Program Files\Macromedia\Flash 8\en\First Run\Tools
try copy from other computer