Well, Flash player 11.3.300.262 now installs itself as a separate sound source in Win 7 and does not remember previous settings, thus making any application using Flash player a pain to use (full volume every time you start it...). So I've reverted to an earlier version 10 which works correctly with the browser. I think that 11.3.300.257 is OK, but I've yet to test it again.
Second, the latest Java update (7) does not work with a number of apps, some games some not. The previous version 6 u31 works just fine, so I've reverted to it.
SD