I friend got this royal pita on his computer somehow and I can't remove it no matter that I try.

It will not allow Spybot S&D to even come up and run.

All I've found on the Internet are various "Free removal tools". I hate the thought of downloading something I know nothing about because I'm leery of jumping from the frying pan into the fire.

Anybody successfully removed this from a computer?

I will wipe the hard drive out and clean install the OS if I have to but that's a last resort.