Bizarre Windows 11 Registry Folders

Hello,

Glary's Utilities cleaner is now spending much time cleaning the registry folder Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows Search\PluginResourceData\

I checked the folder and into it there are dozens, perhaps more than 100 registry keys which I cannot find to what software it belongs. Glary's is usually stable and fast. Now it takes 2-3 minutes to check this folder PluginResource Data in the process of cleaning the PC.

Any ideas about what is this Windows 11 registry folder? Is it a hack, malware or the like? May I delete this folder PluginResourceData?

Kind regards

IM

Hey, there, and Welcome to the Eleven Forum (11F).

Any answer that anyone gives to this will be a purely subjective guess on their part.

We have no idea what the keys are, what software you have installed, if any settings have changed in your Glary Utilities, if you've recently added any software, if you recently changed your Anti-virus software, if you anti--virus software is working or not, and soooo much more.

Not trying to be a jerk - but we usually work on computers by sitting down at them and taking a look at what is going on and such, and since we can't do that in this case, you gotta be our eyes and ears.

Right now we don't have enough information. Even a screenshot of the keys it is finding and deleting would be a big step forward.

One question that will also help: How long has this been happening?

From what I can find, it's related to Windows Search indexing and isn't related to anything malicious.

P.S. You do not need to run registry cleaners, they cause more problems than they're worth and are completely pointless.

Looking through those keys and the ones above and below, these seem to be metrics used/ recorded by Windows search & indexing system for Explorer, Edge and search. Whether they are also used by extensions, such as addblockers, and Windows telemetry/ Defender I can't say.
My personal preference would be to exclude these keys from any cleaning as they will just be recreated as the system is used, also I would imagine there is an internal cap on the number of entries, probably on a first in first out basis.
As a last comment, there really is no need to use registry cleaners or point in using them, if you have a specific reason to remove a particular key/ hive then do so on a targeted basis and do it the way MS recommend.
This is partly my humble opinion but also based on guidance from the developers of the operating system and not on marketing bumpf.

Thank you very much for your advice and comments. I am relieved this seems not to be malicious. After the first reply to this thread, I decided to request support from Glary's. I will post their reply here, so it will help anybody that notices the same issue.