I recall yesterday there was also a CloneDVD update but I ignored it after this happened because I was trying to troubleshoot the AnyDVD issues. After the Safe Mode way didn't work it hit me to uninstall both AnyDVD and CloneDVD and reinstall with the latest on both versions and it worked.
What triggered me to try to reinstall both was I tried to use CloneDVD today by itself to finish something I had saved earlier and I kept getting the same errors. Plus the error "Failed to Init ElbyCDIO!" reminded me Elby was the CloneDVD program. So apparently the newer AnyDVD revision with the previous CloneDVD revision didn't want to "get along" on my pc. Maybe doing this uninstall/reinstall to both could be added as a solution or a "sticky" or whatever if there are issues with future updates as this was one easy fix.
I'm glad that's over. I shouldn't have assumed it was just an AnyDVD issue, but it happened right after the update and the error popped up just when trying to open AnyDVD alone. After I saw CloneDVD did the same thing that gave it away.
Live & learn. Thanks for all the suggestions.