Shamus, dontasciime and LIGHTENING UK!, thank you for taking the time to respond.
I routinely use PerfectDisk 10 to defrag and was, by their algorithm, at 0.3% file fragmentation last night. I'm also compulsive about keeping my system free of malware, backing up my real-time MBAM and NOD32 with SAS on-call. With new software, I always save my to-be-installed executables to a root folder on my HDD and scan them before doing anything else. I downloaded 2.4.4.0 from Mirror 8 which is marked as ImgBurn's. I scanned it with NOD32 (my A/V) and SAS (SUPER AntiSpyware). I'm as close to sure as is reasonable that the executable was clean before I ran it.
dontasciime, I have a strong suspicion that you hit the nail on the head. I run Prevx 3.0, a unique antimalware utility in real-time. A moment ago I opened up Task Manager/Processes and prioritized CPU utilization. I then double clicked my ImgBurn icon and watched. It was like a fistfight between two Prevx 3.0 subroutines: ekrn.exe and prevx.exe - very odd and something I've never seen in the three years I've been on the Prevx bandwagon. Wish me luck because I just uninstalled ImgBurn and cleaned up with CCleaner. My plan is:
1. Download from Mirror 7 (dontasciime, why Mirror 7?) and save the 2.4.4.0 executable,
2. scan with NOD32 & MBAM,
3. disable NOD32, Malwarebytes and most importantly, Prevx,
4. install ImgBurn again in C:\Program Files\ImgBurn,
5. give the ImgBurn a proactive pass with Prevx by entering the above address to Prevx' "Detection Overrides" behavioral customization, and finally
6. re-enable the three antimalware utilities above in #3.
Does this sound like a legitimate plan based on what I've observed and y'all have suggested? Any other thoughts?