Windows Spotlight: what makes the picture change?

AndreyT · 15 Mar 2018

I have two Windows 10 Pro x64 machines. One is a desktop and another is a laptop (Lenovo ThinkPad). On both machines I work under a local administrative account. On both machines the 'Personalization - Lock Screen - Background' setting is set to "Windows spotlight". Both machines are constantly connected to Internet by an Ethernet connection.

At the end of the day, when I finish working on my desktop, I manually issue a 'Power - Sleep' command through the menu. Next morning I just wake it up, log in and continue working.

When I finish working on my laptop I just close the lid (which is set up to make it sleep). Next morning I open the lid, log in and continue working.

Both machines are set up to show the lock screen when coming out of sleep.

I observe that Windows spotlight images on lock screen constantly change on the desktop machine, which is apparently how it is supposed to be. But the lock screen image never changes on the laptop (the same "Lake and backpack" image every time). What could be the reason, the difference here? Why does my desktop change its Windows spotlight images, while my laptop does not?

Eagle51 · 15 Mar 2018

Hey AndreyT,
Sorry ... I can't answer as to why, but you can try the reset / register spotlight from this tutorial - Reset and Re-register Windows Spotlight in Windows 10 Windows 10 Tutorials to try and get it working again.

Note: I don't use sleep on my desktop or laptop (they run 24/7) and both of them do the same thing. Spotlight will work fine for awhile and then just stop and default to the lake / backpack image. After doing many reset/register spotlight, I gave up using spotlight and created my own slide show of spotlight images :)

dalchina · 16 Mar 2018

Spotlight can be a bit fragile. Mine broke after I had been fiddling for a bit over a year ago- I almost got it back working again - all except the Preview in Settings. After the next major build upgrade, all was fine again- and has been ever since.

So try the above tutorial- and then if necessary you could just wait for the next build upgrade.
- I use sleep on my laptop without problems.

One thing I recall trying that seemed to nudge it back into operation was adding an app such as weather - in Settings, Spotlight.

Bree · 16 Mar 2018

AndreyT said:

the lock screen image never changes on the laptop (the same "Lake and backpack" image every time).

Actually the "Lake and backpack" is not a Spotlight picture. It's one of the default pictures installed by Windows 10 along with the cave and the red biplane wing. It's this one...
C:\Windows\Web\Screen\img103.png
...and it's what the lockscreen defaults to when Spotlight is broken.

dalchina said:

Spotlight can be a bit fragile....

And how!

1709 made two big changes to Spotlight. For the first time ever the Spotlight picture appears on a cold boot up, not just when locking the screen. The other change is that it seems even more fragile than before (if that's possible).

For me, at least, the tutorial link Eagle51 gave you in post #2 fixes it every time.

(I have a theory that when I turn on metered connections Spotlight breaks when it runs out of new pictures to use)

Al Airone · 22 Mar 2018

I just tried the tutorial and it worked like a charm - thanks, Brink!

There are a number of other solutions posted in MS Support forums - curiously, some people mentioned half of the solution (delete files from the Assets folder) but not mentioning the Settings folder.