Windows Spotlight - Lock Screen image will not show on Sign-In Screen

Hi all,

I haven't posted here before, so hopefully it's not breaching etiquette to jump straight to the question! I'm running Windows 10 Home version 1903 (Build 18362.778) on a desktop computer.

A while ago, I installed DisplayFusion to help support wallpaper rotation and multiple taskbars on a triple monitor setup, and while exploring the options, I ticked the box that said "Allow DisplayFusion to manage the Windows Lock Screen'. This allowed me to set a custom image for the windows sign-in screen when cold-booting the computer, as well as the lock screen.

I've now unchecked this box, and I've been able to re-enable Windows Spotlight to manage the lock screen - that's the one I see after I've logged in, and then press Windows+L. This works fine. However, when cold-booting or locking the screen, the Spotlight image will not show on the sign-on screen (where the password/PIN is entered) no matter what I do. It just shows a flat colour for the whole screen. Just to be completely clear (as there are lots of threads and posts about enabling Spotlight), I've tried the following:

- Tried both 'Off' and 'On' under "Show lock screen background picture on the sign-in screen" under Personalisation > Locak Screen.
- Clearing previous spotlight image caches under %USERPROFILE%/AppData\Local\Packages\Microsoft.Windows.ContentDeliveryManager_cw5n1h2txyewy\LocalState\Assets
- Tried renaming and deleting the settings.dat and deleting roaming.lock under %USERPROFILE%/AppData\Local\Packages\Microsoft.Windows.ContentDeliveryManager_cw5n1h2txyewy\Settings

So, when locking the computer after booting, I *do* see a Spotlight image. However, while on the spotlight image (where I have the overlay of facts and the 'I like'/'I don't like' options, if I press Enter to bring up the 'Enter PIN' dialog, the picture disappears and is replaced by the flat colour.

My only guess is that DisplayFusion has somehow broken whatever file/path would be used to ensure the sign-in screen background displays the same image as the lock screen background - but I can't find it to fix! I have contacted DisplayFusion directly and, although they tried to help, their support team couldn't tell me what part of Windows was changed/overwritten by their software. So I'm reaching out here in the hope that someone on the forums might now where I should look to fix this, as I'm sure it must just be a dead link somewhere in the registry! I'd really not have to do a fresh/repair install unless it's completely necessary.

Any suggestions would be hugely appreciated. Thanks in advance!

Hi Bastet and Paul Black,

Thanks for such a quick response! I had tried the steps involved in Brink's tutorial already (both manually and running the .bat file, just in case), but I've given them one more try just to see if it worked - no luck, I'm afraid! While Spotlight itself works on the Lock screen, as soon as I press a key to move to the Sign-In screen to enter my PIN, it changes back to a plain flat-colour background - and that's even with "Show lock screen background picture on the sign-in screen" enabled under Personalization.

If I set this to 'disabled', the Spotlight image shows on the Lock screen but not the Sign-In screen.
If I set it to enabled, both Lock and Sign-In show as a plain flat-colour background.


Hi Dalchina,

Thanks for this suggestion as well - I've tried this too (both enabling and disabling the registry key). It seems to get me one step closer. If I create and set 'DisableLogonBackgroundImage' to '1' under Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\System, then the outcome of "Show lock screen background picture on the sign-in screen" under Personalization seems to have a different effect. Regardless of whether "Show lock screen background picture on the sign-in screen", the Spotlight image shows on the Lock screen. However, it still doesn't show on the Sign-In page. That's still just a solid colour.

Do I want DisableLogonBackgroundImage to be 0 or 1? I guessed 1 as I figured that was a 'disable' key - kind of like a double negative :)

And with HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\SystemProtectedUserData\<your account's SID key>\AnyoneRead\LockScreen, there's the HideLogonBackgroundImage key - which I guess should be set to 0?

I feel like it's just got to be one darn registry key somewhere to fix this, but I've got no idea where to look!

Apologies - I know this is all very trivial but it's irritated me enough that it's getting personal now

Thanks for your persistence, Dalchina :)

I've just tried taking ownership of the LockScreen key folder under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\SystemProtectedUserData\<your account's SID key>\AnyoneRead\ and deleted the whole key (backing it up first just in case). Upon rebooting, Windows has re-created it and populated it with only 'HideLogonBackgroundImage', set to 0. This key appears to be controlled by the "Show lock screen background picture on the sign-in screen" toggle under Personalization, so I know it should be set to 0 if I want the lock screen Spotlight image to display on the sign-in screen too. If it's set to '1' I get no image on either the lock screen or the sign-in screen, even if the lock screen background is set to Spotlight.

I've cleared the keys from Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\System too, and it hasn't made a difference. I can't see the DisableAcrylicBackgroundOnLogon key that you have in your screenshot, but I would guess that's not important since that just controls the blurring of the image on the logon page - and I can't see the image at all

I really hope it isn't permanently broken and requires a fresh install! Thanks again for the help so far.

Thanks Dalchina. That's a good idea - I've just created a test account and the same thing happens - Spotlight displays on the lock screen but not on the sign-in screen for the new account. So it's not an account-specific issue but a Windows/registry issue.

I have no idea if that's good news or bad news, but at least it helps me understand what *isn't* the problem :)

Thanks again for your help so far.