Please patch render on Windows 8.1 on with PHP 5.4

What steps will reproduce the problem?
1. Install timthumb.php on Apache server on Windows (i.e. XAMPP, etc.)
2. Visit URL for valid image file with absolute src path i.e. 

http://localhost/timthumb.php?src=C:/Users/smith/Documents/Websites/example.jpg&
h=190&w=292&zc=1&q=100

What is the expected output? What do you see instead?
Output should be the given image, instead we're seeing:

A TimThumb error has occured

The following error(s) occured:
Could not find the internal image you specified.

Query String : 
src=C:/Users/smith/Documents/Websites/example.jpg&h=190&w=292&zc=1&q=100
TimThumb version : 2.8.14

What version of the product are you using? On what operating system?
Windows 8.1 using TimTbumb 2.8.14

Please provide any additional information below.

Here is our work around, on line 901:

// account for Windows directory structure
if ( file_exists( $src ) ){
  return $src;
}

Original issue reported on code.google.com by Steveor...@gmail.com on 14 Aug 2014 at 11:56

HDS02 / timthumb

Please patch render on Windows 8.1 on with PHP 5.4 #493