It's a very annoying issue, I hope this helps in some way. This not only fixed the steam problems but also solved several other small issues I was having with outlook and with my screen saver not running. I then restarted the computer, ran a registry repair program to get rid of the missing links, restarted again and then downloaded the latest iTunes from apple and did a clean install. I then used the Task Manager to stop all iTunes and iCloud processes then deleted the 'apple' folder from 'My Programs x86' I'm running 64bit windows 7. Uninstall from Windows the following programs in this order: iTunes, Apple Software Update, Apple Mobile Device Support, Bonjour, Apple Application Support, iCloud, and finally MobileMe. The fix for this was to completely uninstall all iTunes products according to this order: I would like to go back to the more convenient way of opening the program, rather than always going through my program list. Re-installing the application may fix this problem.' In iTunes 7, the icon is gone, and if you select 'minimize iTunes to taskbar', all it does is show the icon there when iTunes is playing, and it disappears when you close the program.

'This application failed to start because msvcr80.dll was not found. A few days after that I got this error from iTunes: I had this issue and searched the web for an entire day, I tried every fix I came across with negative results.

Itunes minimize to taskbar