Sounds like a bug, not a virus, especially if it didn't persist after reboot. I never experienced something like that in any version of it I've installed. I've used it happily for many years, and I highly doubt there is any compromising element to the install such as malware.

Jeffrey, thanks very much for your input. I'm tending to feel that you're right (I never did restart the laptop, btw), since everything is working just fine, and my AV hasn't picked anything up. But, oh boy -- it sure did give me a scare while it was happening!

I can only imagine XD
No problem, I'm just glad you decided to keep the app. It's really useful and it would be a shame if you abandoned it over this unusual incident that we don't know the proper cause of.

In my comment above, my text got cut off somehow. The end was supposed to say "What might I be misunderstanding or doing wrong?

Nebulous, Many years ago I suffered a gruelingly slow P.C. and nothing could fix it other than reinstalling Windows.

Registry repairers in my experience are hopeless.

If you install and uninstal lots of programs to test this can be the cause. The answer to that is use CCleaner to check the registry on uninstall and even search your C:\ drive for remnants.

You need to check your startup programs in the task manager and turn off anything you're not using or unistall them.

Most important of all get Paragon or Aomei backup software and back up your OS regularly especially if you decide to re-install windows. then if you have a slow down you can reinstall an earlier version.

(My experience is also, not only is Windows Restore totally incapable of restoring it destroys your stystem during its failure to restore).

Looks like the key is designed to work exclusively in the revision that comes from the included installer. You can install it on top of the existing install even of the same version, no uninstall required. That's what I did and it worked just fine.

Don, you really just have to install Revo Uninstaller, and then delete all the registry entries you get.

Every time I've had an issue like this using Revo Uninstaller has fixed those problems when trying to install new versions of programs.

BeGee,

You can install new version over previous.

Some things I forgot to mention:
Make sure you enable Startup Control so you can take advantage of its most powerful & useful functionality.
Windows 11 support, themes, and scaling options are included.
You can totally get by with the Free version. The Pro version here provides mostly nice-to-have features.

Jeffrey,
I know you said it was a lifetime license giveaway but it does say "Licence details:
Lifetime, no updates" so I don't know if you meant that with a lifetime license you would get lifetime updates too? But it looks like when I try to update with this updated version it does not let me do it.

So I guess it is a lifetime license but with no updates. I know I've had a giveaway for this program in the past but I think it was longer than a year as well, most likely a lifetime license with no updates too. Maybe I am wrong though

Correct - lifetime but no updates. That's the standard for giveaways; in all the years I've been collecting these, I don't think I've ever encountered a single lifetime giveaway that did allow for updates. (Well technically the only ones that do allow updates are web-based SaaS subscription giveaways.)