Windowblinds won't hide your start-up icons. That is a Windows setting that you are referring to. Sometimes if a startup program is inactive and the setting is to "hide when inactive" that will happen. Right click the Start Button, Properties, taskbar, customize. Under current items, when you see a icon that says "hide when inactive" you can change it to "always show". click it and use the drop down menu to change it. That should fix the problem.
