Windows Spotlight lock screen picture won't change

Anonymous
2018-02-09T16:26:33+00:00

Hello,

I have an HP laptop running Windows 10, and usually when my laptop is locked, the picture changes every now and then on my lock screen and I really enjoyed that. But recently for the past month or two, it's been stuck on the same picture and it stopped changing to new pictures. I checked my settings and I still have "Windows Spotlight" set as my lock screen but still nothing happens. It just stopped working and changing pictures for some reason.

If anyone can help, please do!

Windows for home | Windows 10 | Windows Hello, lock screen and sign-in

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Anonymous
2018-05-22T00:04:55+00:00

Just follow these steps of Windows Central:

How to fix Windows Spotlight Lock screen errors Is Windows Spotlight broken or stuck on the same image? If so, this guide details the steps to fix the issue.

Windows Spotlight is a feature included with Windows 10 that uses Bing to automatically download and set new background images on the Lock screen, to keep your experience fresh every time you sign in.

The only caveat with Windows Spotlight is that sometimes it will stop working, or you'll notice that it gets stuck on the same image. Unfortunately, Windows 10 doesn't include an option to reset this feature. However, it's possible to fix the Windows Spotlight settings with this simple workaround.

In this Windows 10 guide, we show you the steps to fix Windows Spotlight on your computer and keep getting fresh images from Bing on your Lock screen.

How to reset Windows Spotlight

If the Windows Spotlight feature is stuck on the same image, or it's not working at all, you can use the following steps to fix the issue:

  1. Open Settings.
  2. Click on Personalization.
  3. Click on Lock screen.
  4. Under "Background," make sure Windows Spotlight is NOT selected and change the option to Picture or Slideshow.
  5. Use the Windows key + R keyboard shortcut to open the Run command.
  6. Type the following path and click OK. %USERPROFILE%/AppData\Local\Packages\Microsoft.Windows.ContentDeliveryManager_cw5n1h2txyewy\LocalState\Assets
  7. Select all the files (Ctrl + A) and hit the Delete key to clear all old images (if applicable).
  8. Use the Windows key + R keyboard shortcut to open the Run command again.
  9. Type the following path to where the Windows Spotlight settings are stored and click OK. %USERPROFILE%/AppData\Local\Packages\Microsoft.Windows.ContentDeliveryManager_cw5n1h2txyewy\Settings
  10. Right-click settings.dat and roaming.lock individually, then click Rename and name them settings.dat.bak and roaming.lock.bak.
  11. Restart your computer.
  12. Open Settings.
  13. Click on Personalization.
  14. Click on Lock screen.
  15. Under "Background," make sure to enable Windows Spotlight.

Once you complete these steps, you can lock your PC (Windows key + L), and the Lock screen should show new Bing images.

If everything worked as expected, remember to go back to the Settings folders where Windows Spotlight stores the settings and delete the settings.dat.bak and roaming.lock.bak files.

Alternative method to fix Windows Spotlight

If the steps mentioned above didn't fix Windows Spotlight, you can try to reset the settings using the following steps:

  1. Open Settings.
  2. Click on Personalization.
  3. Click on Lock screen.
  4. Under "Background," make sure to enable Windows Spotlight. (If you don't enable the feature, you're likely to get an error while running the PowerShell command.)
  5. Open Start.
  6. Search for Windows PowerShell, right-click the result, and select Run as administrator.
  7. Enter the following command and press Enter to reset the Windows Spotlight: Get-AppxPackage -allusers *ContentDeliveryManager* | foreach {Add-AppxPackage "$($_.InstallLocation)\appxmanifest.xml" -DisableDevelopmentMode -register }
  8. Restart your computer.

After completing these steps, you should be able to lock your PC (Windows key + L), and the Lock screen should show new Bing images.

Source: https://www.windowscentral.com/how-fix-windows-spotlight-stuck-same-image-windows-10?passport=1526946645

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  1. Anonymous
    2021-01-01T18:08:32+00:00

    What if you don't want the background to have the image from Bing? I only like the background to be that boring blue Windows background.

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  2. Anonymous
    2021-01-01T17:58:02+00:00

    I think I tried all of the solutions posted previously. A few of them worked for awhile but eventually the lock screen on my desktop and/or laptop reverted to the all too familiar suicide scene (backpack at the shore of a mountain lake).

    What is currently working for me on all my Windows computers is the Bing Wallpaper app available from Microsoft:

    https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/bing/bing-wallpaper

     

    You can access the app settings from the notification area. But really all the critical settings are made for you during the app's installation: in your computer Settings, Background is set to "picture" and Lock screen is set to "Windows spotlight".

    This solution continues to work after several months and several updates on 2 desktops and 2 laptops.

    Hope this helps.

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  3. Anonymous
    2021-01-01T12:59:29+00:00

    Doesn't sound good.

    Did you also follow the instructions from Lucas earlier like I did? Cleaning out the cache folders for Spotlight and renamed the settings file to .bak

    That and then the powershell command to should reset Spotlight that never really worked for me. I did run that several times with no progress at all until I found the recommendation a week ago about open a elevated cmd promt as administrator and type following and Enter after each line.

    You can try and see if it does anything for you too and follow up with another reset of Spotlight:

    cmd (elevated as administrator)> dism /online /cleanup-image /restorehealth

    > sfc/scannow

    Then start powershell from cmd> powershell

    And run that reset command for Spotlight again

    Ps> Get-AppxPackage -allusers *ContentDeliveryManager* | foreach {Add-AppxPackage "$($_.InstallLocation)\appxmanifest.xml" -DisableDevelopmentMode -register }

    Doing the dism /online followed by sfc/scannow did affected the results for me on the reset command. Much more happens but Spotlight on Lock screen was still broken.

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  4. Anonymous
    2020-12-31T22:36:52+00:00

    It had picture. But it still came up with my old Spotlight picture on the lockscreen even though it reflected the Dynamic Theme image in the settings. Weird.

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