Fine In Safemode,So Slow In Normal Startup

At first,the Windows LiveOneCare icon refused to show or appeared in red.Then over a day or so,the laptop started slowing right down to a crawl.Literally now it can take hours for the add/remove feature to load.It loads quickly and works fine in 'safe mode with networking'.I scanned online with onecare,McAfee and downloaded avast and all showed nothing (avast in the pre-boot scan).I just can't use the laptop in normal startup though.Is there any way to strip away programmes in 'normal' mode to duplicate 'safe mode' and then add programmes again until i see where the problem is? I have 12Gigs free on the hard-drive,the system tells me. HAPPY CHRISTMAS AND NEW YEAR ALL.

Have you had any joy with your laptop? Try checking for this program MsMpEng.exe.
MSMPENG is the antimalware detection engine shared by OneCare and Windows Defender and it sometimes get in a bind chasiong it's own tail, so to speak.

click on start then type msconfig in to the little search box click on diagnostic start up apply and re-boot. you should now boot as in safe mode.

do the above again only this time click on the start up tab. click the first box apply then reboot again.

Continue with this process untill your laptop starts to show previous symtoms again. when it does un cgeck the last tick and re boot to see if that solves it. if it does thats the program thats causing the problem.

ps i assume you have done a defrag/clean upif not do that first.