JJ,

the Start Menu's Startup folder are run by the desktop/shell
process (EXPLORER.EXE).

Something about that :

while playing around with an iconoverlay I've several times killed the
explorer.exe process and restarted it (both to release the just unregistered
iconoverlay dll as well as to refresh the icons). I've got programs in the
startup folder creating an icon in the systray (at the right, next to the
clock). Those do not re-appear after restarting the explorer.exe process,
though your above sounds like they should. Any idea why ?

Or, said otherwise : are you sure that running the startup folders contents
is part of the explorer.exe process.

Regards,
Rudy Wieser