Apps disappear form Windows 7 taskbar when unhiding; MS Office Ribbon disappears

Hi.
I've been experiencing a problem with Parallels for as long as I can remember, and it is now annoying enough that it is preventing me from working effectively.
Setup:

• Mac OS X 10.9.5
• Parallels Desktop 9.0.23036 (Rev. 915397; Aug 28 2013)
• Windows 7
• Running in NON-Coherance mode

The issue: randomly, when I had Parallels and then re-enter it from Mac OS X, Parallels comes to the forefront as expected, but all of the apps which are running in Windows do not show up in the Windows taskbar. They are still present in the Mac OS X Dock. To get them to show back up again in the Windows taskbar, I have to click them in the Mac OS X Dock. However, to compound the issue, if one of the apps is Excel, the ribbon and Office button disappear. So I am unable to save the file I am working on, or use a save-as. The result is that if I wish to save the changes to the file I am working in, I cannot save the changes to a new file -- so I have to overwrite the old file. This is unacceptable if I am working on major revisions of files.
Any idea what the problem could be? attached is a screengrab. In Parallels, Firefox is available, but if you look in the Dock in Mac OS X on the lower-left, I should have a Windows Explorer window available as well.: