Win 7 Start Up, Safe, vs. Normal

[Oniya]

Okay.  Mr. Oniya's computer has a bit of malware we're trying to eradicate.  (Yes, he surfs porn, and usually the antivirus catches him when he gets too far from his safe sites.)  If you load up Win 7 normally, there's a short window in which we can activate other programs, but it has the Task Manager bollixed by that point.  If you load up in Safe Mode, it doesn't appear to get loaded at all.

What I'm trying to figure out is how to find a list of what is loaded under normal loading that is not loaded in Safe Mode, on this particular computer.  I've got M-BAM running a full scan with the latest database, so that should be done in about an hour. 

[Vekseid]

The 'full scan' is just a placebo.

I usually run Combofix from safe mode with command prompt. Sometimes stuff hooks into explorer.exe loading, which still gets loaded in safe mode.

[Oniya]

Alright - I know that ComboFix is one of those 'make sure you know what you're doing before you do it' programs.  This computer did not come with disks, only a D: Factory Image partition.  How easily can I do something that messes the computer up so that it requires a reinstall?

UPDATE:

M-BAM found four little buggers, three Exploits and a Trojan.  Removed, restarted, no sign of the splash screen that he was getting.  Just need to make sure that particular tab doesn't load up again when he tries to get back online.  *toddles off to Firefox page*

UPDATED UPDATE:

Turns out his Firefox didn't save the tabs anyways.  We are safe, and that means that I won't be dragged away from my crafting tomorrow!  *kermitarms*