Hi Janus!
Thanks so much for the suggestion, but I'm just recovering from a major PC meltdown (long story*) and I really don't want to make any more changes right now.
My Eset AV is running smooothly and I'm grateful for that! (My NotificationArea Icon issue is a very minor one compared to some real problems people are having.)
Thanks again though!
* Long story = My PC started to shut down at random. No error messages, no strange behaviors, no warnings, just a total sudden loss of power.
Had it in the shop over a dozen times, and each visit brought hopes of relief. They wound up replacing my Power Supply, RAM, CPU, Mobo (twice), HardDrive, and of course reinstalling Windows itself (twice also). Finally, just last week, the demon was excorsized and my system is running strong and steady again, first time since February!
Needless to say, I had to reinstall everthing from scratch (including ESET) but so far, so good!