iexplore.exe still running in background AFTER scans & MBR rewrite

I just cleaned a machine for a real estate inspector. Without going into much detail, A Trojan Multiple Fraud Alert thingy… rolleyes .. Layers of persistent, regenerating nastiness that looked like it had been allowed to fester till the machine fell on it’s face.

Everything hidden. Malware fighting the cleaning process. Executables inoperable.. you know the story….

After winning the fight (except for iexplore.exe running in the background)
Malwarebytes – clean (after several scans)
Combo Fix - clean (after several scans - found root kits twice)
MBR - Rewritten (twice)

But “iexplore.exe” still running in background (usually two instances).

I reasoned: “If rewriting the MBR didn’t clear it, (as it usually does) the problem is not in the MBR.”

What I found:
For lack of a better way of putting it, this “infection” seemed to be “buried” under ie8, which had been updated from ie6, before sp3 was installed. (rendering ie8 un-removable without first backing out of sp3 - winXP)

After uninstalling these mal-timed layers of dis-ordered updates, running scans, and putting everything back together in the correct order, the machine is clean, with no iexplore.exe running in the background.