I know this was some time ago and Avast seemed to rid me of this problem, well its not surfaced again.
BUT a file that was downloaded and installed around the time the Chinese letters appeared in the registry files. the other day I used the same file in another PC with Win 7 installed and the same characters appeared in the Perflib file so had a look through community where I found Jotti listed a a website that scans files, I had the files scanned but nothing was found but seems very strange that after installing, I started having issues, once file is removed everything stops, now it could be just me but thought I would put it in the post.
File names : Academy_Engraved_LET.ttf and copyfonts.com_academy-engraved-let.ttf
I know they are small files and if anything would annoy rather than corrupt thing but if anyone has a isolated system for testing I would love to know if they contain malware or virus.
By the way I hand corrected errors in Registry and Perflib restored with no help from anti-virus software that found nothing wrong!!!