New control icon in NIS 2012

I am still finding my way round NIS 2012 which I upgraded to today on my Win XP PC and I am curious about something.  What has happened since is that I upgraded my wife's Win 7 laptop from NIS 2011 to NIS 2012 also.  As far as I know all is fine.  However my wife got an extra bit to me. In the top right hand corner of her computer screen a futher separate icon about an inch or so square appeared with the green "secure" logo as on the main window and the six buttons ("Actvity map" etc) all in miniature. I don't recall doing anything extra to get that.  It has an "x" closure button on it.  As I mentioned I don't seem to have it on XP. 

 

You know something - I just went downstairs and switched my wife's laptop on to doublecheck before posting this and it's not there and won't appear again.  It certainly was there.  Any ideas about this?