So my pc locked up during a CCleaner session (never had that happen before) and I ended up doing a hard reboot. After the start up there weren't any icons in the Quick Launch area. Instead of checking to see if QL was enabled in Taskbar properties (it wasn't) I opened CC from the Start Menu. The folder name I have it in ended up in the Taskbar, next to, but not in the Notification Area and I absolutely could not get rid of it. I eventually had to reboot into an AyRecovery snapshot. Does anyone know how I could have removed it? I tried numerous Taskbar settings, couldn't drag it out or delete it.
Possibly something got messed up in the Windows registry with the hard restart, just my guess however it's plausible.