Notification Area Icons. Possible to 'freeze' them as they are?

I am really sick of my PC constantly changing whether icons in the notification area are shown or not. Doing this manually every time they change is a real pain (I have to reset my Mailwasher icon to 'Show Icon and Notifications' every two days or so, for instance). Why does Windows keep resetting my preferences?

I thought I may be able to make the task of resetting the icons to how I want them displayed, rather than how Windows decides they should be, a bit easier by backing up the relevant registry key when the icons are displayed as I want:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\Local Settings\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\TrayNotify

and just merging it when things change. But although that seems to restore the values to the registry key it doesn't actually make any changes to what is displayed in the notification area.

Anyone know of a 'one-click' solution to this annoyance? Googling hasn't lead me to a solution as yet.. the following post (first answer) even seems to suggest that it isn't possible:

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/...-437c3c6a38aa/

Martin

Thanks. Yes, I already use QuickLaunch for many applications..

M.

Yes, that's right. My icons have never been consistent (one or two in particular are almost daily culprits: Windows hides them when I have set the customization to show notifications and icons. When I go back to the customization window, the icons are shown as 'notifications only' again).

The same happens on my other laptop, which runs Windows XP x64, so it's not just a Windows 7 issue.

Martin