microsoft outlook - Why does my Tray Icon's Behavior occasionally reset Windows 7?

I'm fine with having most of my tray icons hidden, however I want the Outlook Notification envelop to show at all times when I have new messages. Its important for me to know when I have unread emails, as I often miss seeing them come in and they are often important.

I'll change the settings to Show Icon and Notifications, however it randomly seems to reset itself every few days or weeks back to Only Show Notifications

For example, it was working fine this morning, appearing when I had an unread message in my Inbox, and then it suddenly stopped working again. I only noticed it because I went to send an email and realized I had unread messages. I've only been here a few hours, so haven't signed off, locked my machine, rebooted it, or restarted Outlook.

Here's a picture of how my Task Bar usually looks. I don't like the Windows 7 big icons, and prefer two rows of items since I usually have multiple things open at once. I'm not sure if that setup has anything to do with why my Tray Icon behavior keeps getting reset or not.

Why is my Tray Icon behavior getting reset, and how can I stop it from happening?

Edit

I noticed that I got both Windows Security Updates, and Microsoft Office updates on this day. I am beginning to believe that this is a bug in either Windows 7 or Office which resets the default tray behavior when an update occurs. That would explain the seemingly random times that the behavior gets reset.

It should also be noted that when the envelop disappears, it still shows up in my tray icons, however the icon is hidden and I need to click the drop-down arrow to see it. This makes me think it's the Windows Updates causing the problem. Unfortunately, I didn't write down the days this has happened on in the past to see if it relates to other Windows or Office updates to be sure.