I think my windows was getting too neat.....
It was hiding everything it could find.

I played iwth aforementioned settings and once I found the icon (in the lower right corner) I locked the task bar. Hopefully that bad boy ain't goin no damn where.

Why did my computer start freaking out like this? Just curious.

Ahhh....that's the $64,000,000 question. Just keep us in a handy place and we'll help you in the future

It must be the settings u tweaked unknowingly.

It's a standard feature of the XP desktop. Saves clutter, makes your brain hurt more<delete!> less.

Unless you told the safely remove icon to "Always show" then it will probably disappear again.

I would just disable the "hide inactive icons" , and then manually permanently remove the icons i don't want there.