I was having this problem since the September iTunes and IOS updates and was dealing with it with a work around that I had found here by letting the troubleshooter in Windows Control Panel / Devices for my iPhone recognize my iPhone in Windows Explorer.
AND THEN last week Microsoft pushed the Tuesday Monthly updates out one of which hosed my Outlook. Microsoft reissued the KB in the early morning hours of last Wednesday and my Outlook troubles were fixed. What I did notice was that my Temp directory was filling up with MSI*.Log files and found the Event Viewer wasn't running because the service would not start. I chased this around for most of yesterday then found a fix for the Log files / Event Viewer Problem. Somehow my Windows/system32/LogFiles/WMI/RtBackup subdirectory had lost SYSTEM permissions. Found this out from a web search that restoring the SYSTEM permissions to that sub-directory fixed the LOG files and Event Viewer problem.
This morning I started iTunes and when I plugged in my iPhone it was once again showing in Windows Explorer without having to run the Device troubleshooter. Thought maybe it as a fluke and disconnected my iPhone, shutdown iTunes and powered off the PC.
When I powered the PC back on, started iTunes and plugged the iPhone back in the iPhone was showing again in Windows Explorer.
Not sure why the permissions changes to that sub-directory would have to do with the iPhone not showing in Windows Explorer, but thought I would share what I went through