Windows – Outlook 2010 – Missing New Mail Envelope Icon

I've seen a number of posts related to this issue, but none with a solution that works for me. I have:

• Windows 7 Professional 64 bit
• Office/Outlook 2010
• "Show an envelope icon in the taskbar" checked
• "Hide When Minmized" selected
• "Show icon and notifications" selected for Outlook in my taskbar settings

This used to show me the envelope icon in my notifications area. Then something happened with my user profile and the sys admins created me a new one. Since then, the envelope only displays if Outlook is not minimized. It doesn't matter if I unselect "Hide When Minmized", the icon still doesn't display when new mail arrives.

If I select "Display a Desktop Alert", then the icon is displayed. However, I HATE the desktop alert as I find it too intrusive/distracting.

Is there some way to just get the envelope icon working (again)?

UPDATE

More testing and sometimes I will and sometimes I won't get an envelope icon with the desktop alert turned on. This is driving me nuts!!

UPDATE TWO

I like my notification area of the taskbar to be clean. So, all icons are set to "Only show notifications" except for Outlook as noted above. I've noticed the envelope icon is being displayed in the expanded notification area when I click on the up arrow to view all icons. So, it is being added to the notification area, but not displayed. It's a rather useless feature now…