Download, unblock, unzip and run the appropriate bitness version (almost always 64-bit) of Nir Sofer's RegScanner.
Carry out a scan for Spotlight:
The results will show a list of registry keys, including behaviour (1) and possible blocks (2):
This shouldl help you identify the keys to export and compare.
Hope this helps...
Thank you Rick, I ran it with "Spotlight" as the keyword, but I didn't really find anything that looked remotely strange, or any blocks at all. I wish I had a Win 10 Pro PC here with Spotlight working so that I can compare the results, but alas, I don't.
In the meantime, some developments:
On Saturday I SAW A SPOTLIGHT LOGIN SCREEN - some nice photo with a mountain and a palace of sorts. I was very very careful not to click anywhere like "I like this photo" or "What's this" or anything but login. I looked as ASSETS folder, and sure enough, there was about 15-20 images downloaded, larger images, like 300-400-500 KB each, not just those 15 very small icon images.
The image was there about 2 or possibly 3 days and THEN BACK TO STOCK IMAGE (lake) LOCK/LOGIN SCREEN. Aaargh! Went in and looked at ASSETS folder, and I was really surprised: all newly downloaded images were simply GONE, only leaving about 15 small icon images with timestamps when I last re-registered Spotlight using Brink's solution.
That is just amazing. If Spotlight was somehow stuck, and not picking a new image, I could believe there's a problem in its package somewhere. Also, if Spotlight was never downloading any new images, sure, I guess I could believe that something is blocking it. But for those images to get downloaded into ASSETS folder, work for 2-3 days, and then for something to delete them, well that's just... wow.
Tuesday now, still damn lake image...
But this is the thing - I can understand just "shoddy". Hell, I do shoddy - I'm a software developer myself. I can understand when I see something that is done in a bit of a half-arsed way. The thing with Spotlight though is that it seems like it's the most complex feature in universe to accomplish, whereas the specs for it look frighteningly easy - "Download some pics from our servers every 3-4 days, display one as a lock screen image for about 48 hours, rinse and repeat". Right?
I first had a Win 10 PC immediately after 10 came out. Spotlight was working great for 3-4 months, then stopped, nobody could fix it, one guy came up with a solution where you could re-run a set of registry keys and you had to do it on every shut down because Windows was automatically overwriting them wrongly (!) and then build 1609 came out and it was fixed. For a month or so. Ever since then I had FOUR windows 10 PCs, 2 laptops and 2 desktops and none of them had a stable Spotlight. And it's not that I always set my PCs up the same way, some have firewalls, some don't, some are personal, some are for work, some have local accounts, some have online accounts, etc, but it's almost as if MS went to a great deal of effort to make a relatively very simple feature that nothing else depends on seem so flaky that it stops working if you sneeze.
Agreed, some things MS does and inflicts upon the public are shoddy.
As spotlight also requires interaction with MS's servers other factors could be in play.
I've had 2 laptops, no clean installs for years, and it's been stable- and I've installed, uninstalled, updated etc..
But yes, there was one time early one when many were having problems and I did too for a while.
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