The more worrying issue, in my opinion, is the fact that an update for Windows from two weeks ago, has completely ruined many machines, causing countless bottlenecks, freezes and even preventing numerous programs from running.
I am also a member on the GTA forums and it turned out that many members of the community have started to experience crashes in GTA after about five minutes into the game. They also complained that ever since the new update, they couldn't, in fact, run any game at all. Mysteriously, I have also received numerous "on-exit" crashes right after this update and couldn't even revert the system properly for the first time!
I have no idea - how can a regular OS update wreak havoc on so many systems? But this, combined with your findings, is obviously a sign that something is very wrong.