Actually the flaw was descovered in Dec. not last week. It was simply reveiled last week.

Yep, after installing this security update yesterday (and accepting the 'reboot now' option instead of letting Windows bitch at me for the next few hours about needing a reboot) I was welcomed to back with a DLL Relocation Error, purportedly from user32.dll.

In fact, it was telling me (in a non-explicit way) that the Realtek High Definition Audio Control Panel DLL (which also, or actually, handles the System Tray icon presence) had not been loaded. It didn't say why exactly, other than referring in a somewhat incomprehensible way to the fact that two DLLs were no longer happy about living in the same address space, and one had been chucked out.

I still had sound, but none of the Realtek equalisation or environmental effects. So I grabbed the latest driver kit from the Realtek website (not easy to readily identify which one I needed, mind) and installed it over what was now evidently a broken (i.e. 'securely patched') configuration.

One reboot later, and the unhappy DLLs are now reconciled.