System restore -- similar/different from XP?

I have some questions about safe mode and system restore under Windows 7. I have only used them with XP before.

I'm going to be helping a friend over the phone with his HP Pavillion with Windows 7. Something happened recently--the system got corrupted. He tells me that he can't run system restore because he gets a message that says he needs to shut down the antivirus, but he can't find or shut down the antivirus (said that got corrupted). I think it's Avast. He also tried to delete the Avast executable from Program Files, obviously not a good thing to do, and said that led to more problems.

Also he says he gets lot of messages telling him he must be administrator, but he doesn't know how to be administrator.

I'm sorry this information is kind of vague, but it's the best I could get from him via email.

My plan is to help him boot into safe mode and then run system restore from there. My questions are:

• Under windows 7, does one get into safe mode the same way (pressing F8)?
• Will "administrator" be one of the listed users when booting into safe mode?
• He has no memory of setting up an administrator account when he first got the laptop. Is there likely to be a default password on the administrator account, or will it have no password?
• Does system restore work the same as XP?
• Under XP, when I do a system restore I usually make sure all data I want to save is inside "My Documents" because the system restore process will affect any other part of the disk. Is this true in Windows 7 as well?