1) Take a look at the code used to show the system tray from the taskbar and you should be able to go from there. Might be as easy as setting the Systray to be visible on start.

2) Read the Docs for xtaskbar-2.0.5 on how to make things blink.

3) Open Notepad and edit the file. You associated .rc files with LiteStep and LiteStep doesn't do anything with them so you get an access denied.