I've been having a problem with my home computer for a while, where many of my startup applications would fail to create an icon on the system tray in Windows XP upon initial boot-up. Logging off and back on to my user account would fix the problem, and since my computer stayed on most of the time I didn't have to deal with it often, so I just let it be.
But recently, to save money on the electric bill and head off some overheating issues we were having in our small home office, we started keeping both computers turned off. This meant that I was now dealing with the annoying startup problem every time I wanted to use my computer, and it really started getting on my nerves. So I finally started searching the web for answers, and I found the solution!
It seems this problem is caused by an unidentified bug in Windows XP relating to the Universal Plug and Play service. Disabling the service, or using the less drastic workaround I chose, which I'll explain in a minute, doesn't work for everyone, so the bug probably lies elsewhere in a related service. But it works for most, and it worked for me.
What I did was open My Network Places, and select "Hide icons for networked uPnP devices". As soon as I saw this suggested workaround a light went on over my head and I realized exactly when this problem had started. A while back we had purchased a new home theater receiver which has some network features, and I had enabled this option in order to play with it and see what it could do. I didn't find anything interesting, but I left it enabled, because... well, why not? Now I know why not! 
I rebooted after following the suggestion and instantly my startup was back to normal - not only were all of the icons back, but it started much faster, too!
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