Using A Folder On An External Hard Drive For Lock Screen Slideshow

pepanee · 12 Aug 2016

Hello,

So in Settings -> Personalization -> Lock Screen:
I want to set a Slideshow for images inside a folder that's on an external hard disk drive that's connected to the computer through a USB cable 24/7. When I select that folder, I get this message in red font:
The Wallpaper Images folder isn't supported because of its location. Please choose another folder.
I remember I was able to do that for Windows 8.1.

What happen?

What's the workaround for this annoyance please, thanks!

AndreTen · 12 Aug 2016

Can you provide us with picture of that message, because I just tried to select folder on USB external drive and there were no problems.

There are some information on MS forums about possible problems. Looks like folder have to be indexed. Try to enable indexing on your drive.

This is from MS forums:

As minor tip, once the lock screen slideshow starts we check the selected folders for data. If we don't find data there, we kick the indexer and tell it to go index. Once it finds data we'll start showing the lock screen slideshow. This is not an instant process: it's fairly quick, but you may want to give it a bit.

So if you're still getting a "there are no pictures here" message (as distinct from "this folder is not supported"), you might want to give it a bit to scan the folder.

pepanee · 12 Aug 2016

The folder's name is: "High-Definition Monitor (16x9 Aspect Ratio)"

Using A Folder On An External Hard Drive For Lock Screen Slideshow-lock-screen-slideshow-fail.png

AndreTen · 12 Aug 2016

I have put some additional information in the previous post. try to enable indexing of target folder.

pepanee · 12 Aug 2016

Hmh.. Okay thanks for that link. I checked it out. As a matter of fact, the computer is in the middle of the process of indexing that hard disk drive. I guess I wouldn't have encountered this problem if I didn't mess with the System Volume Information folder there, because when I did, this hard drive got thrown out of the indexer. Too bad that folder is completely useless on that hard drive (because this folder is mainly used for System Restore), I just was hoping to beautify and organize the folders in there; I don't like clutter.

But yes, I tried searching for an image name in that folder and cannot see the search result... yet. Since it hasn't been indexed... yet. So gotta give this some time. When it's done, I'll reply back on here.

Thanks

pepanee · 12 Aug 2016

According to the Indexing Options window, Indexing is now complete.

I tried to add the folder and I still get the same issue. I restarted the computer and tried it again, same issue.

What should I do?

AndreTen · 12 Aug 2016

pepanee said:

According to the Indexing Options window, Indexing is now complete.

I tried to add the folder and I still get the same issue. I restarted the computer and tried it again, same issue.

What should I do?

What external disk do you have? Any special software on it? Does it shows normally in disk management?

Also if you make one test: simplify the name of folder - name it test or something, also rename any path to it into simple letter and number style.
Just for test to see, if drive is recognized.

I have to manually select folder properties then under advance: allow files to be indexed have to be checked.

pepanee · 12 Aug 2016

1) External disk drive is: Western Digital My Passport 070A USB Device
2) I made a simple test, created a folder in the root directory of the hard disk: X:/New Folder/ and put 60 images there to try it out. I was hoping this would work.. but darn, it didn't work
3) The option from your picture is already selected by default apparently. I saw other folders' Properties; the same applies to them all too.

I tried looking around on the internet and I noticed that some people have this issue with when they wanna put pictures from a network connection or something. It's really similar to that.

Thanks

AndreTen · 12 Aug 2016

Some check points to make from this blog...

Some users claim, that deselecting folder (changing back to picture), restart computer and re selecting folder for slideshow solved this problem.

So in short the process was:

Under Settings->Personalization->Lock Screen->Background, set to slideshow->Album, set to C:/windows/web/screen->restart->back to Lock Screen->remove C:/windows/web/screen and select your desired backgrounds folder.

Interesting is, that I couldn't get error "The Wallpaper Images folder isn't supported because of its location. Please choose another folder
but only "more then one picture..."

Will look further.

AndreTen · 12 Aug 2016

Did you try Winaero lock screen customizer?

It is made for Windows 8 and 8.1, but supposedly works on 10 too.