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
    2020-10-20T15:48:41+00:00

    Many thanks BlueScream,

    I'm using a Lenovo ideacentre 620S.  It's a 64 bit machine running Microsoft Windows 10 Home edition, build 19041.

    My default browser is Edge but I use Chrome also.

    I have Office 365, PowerBI desktop, Teams, Zoom, Malwarebytes premium, some CoffeeCup website software, Spotify, Epson printer driver, but not much else.

    My internet connection is not very good - I'm in the countryside and my "broadband" (ahem!) comes through copper wires.

    I also have Surface laptop which is synched via OneDrive, including the desktop.  I've never had any issues with the Lock Screen on my laptop.

    When I really put my computer through its paces with ill-advisedly large amounts of data processing with Excel PowerPivot and/or PowerBI, with OneDrive on (actually two OneDrives for two Microsoft accounts - don't ask! - best to "pause" OneDrive if you're using lots of processing power - but remember to save!!!), then Excel will inevitably crash requiring ctrl-alt-del, restart, etc.

    Then I can almost guarantee that if the Lock Screen thing was working, it won't anymore, and/or it may partially work (e.g. I don't to vote "I like it" to a picture.  Moreover, my desktop background will sometimes also change without asking.

    I've learnt over the years not to throw too much data at my computer, and then I may be OK for longer before the setup seems inevitably to degrade and I have to steal myself to waste an afternoon resetting the device from scratch.  That used to be much of a pain than recently, especially as I've kept hand-written notes of software passwords and the like.

    I hope that helps you or someone, if only to relax and say, well, that's just what computers are these days :-)

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  2. Anonymous
    2020-10-20T13:30:46+00:00

    What a pity. I don't know how long my Lock Screen will work, but after I had the error msg on the breaching whale image (incl in an earlier comment of mine) I did one "final" tinker.

    I went back and re-executed the 2  Run commands, deleting all the Assets and renaming Settings.dat and Roaming.lock.

    Nothing happened for 10 hours or so, but then a new screen appeared. I've had 6 different screens at approx 24 hr intervals. I don't remember that they used to change that frequently, and they may echo your experience and stop after a month or so. 

    Just out of curiosity, I'm using Edge (aka son-of-Chrome), and left Bing as default after the browser update (altho' I use DuckDuckGo). What is your setup?

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  3. Anonymous
    2020-10-20T07:42:09+00:00

    Same here on my new-ish Lenovo computer.  I did a clean re-install because other things were going wrong, which fixed the Lock Screen issue for a month or so - and the other glitches too.  The Lock Screen worked for a month or so but now it doesn't work any more.  I went through the Lukas T's procedure again (https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/profile/aa6331e8-90d4-4304-9463-cce10a008e50), but it didn't work for me, just as it didn't work the first time.  So I give up!

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  4. Anonymous
    2020-10-13T17:43:21+00:00

    Yes, try it...you don't lose anything...i did it with many regions e.g. Japan, India etc. and the  result was succesful too...From July 12, since i made the region change, i don't have any problem with Windows Spotlight...Since i'm in Greece, maybe the problem has to do with EU rules and rights because i had a similar problem with my Xiaomi phone where the Themes' list disappeared suddently...I changed the region to US, dowhloaded the themes i wanted and then changed back the region to Greece...I think the problem with Spotlight is something similar and appeared about one and a half year ago after the Spring update....Microsoft has already delayed to solve the problem...anyway, if i face this problem again i don't think is something so serious to make a clean install to my computer...i prefer to use other applications from Windows Store or disable lock screen... anyway, i wish you good luck  and don't worry, in the days of Covid-19 this is a minor problem...

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