In earlier versions of windows you had very little control over all those icons that inevitably showed up in the lower right corner of your screen. Well, Microsoft add a great feature in Windows 7 that lets you customize when the icons are hidden and when they show up so that you can handle any alert or item that you need to.
How to Geek has a great article that takes you step by step through the process of customizing your notification area icons. Check it out here.