Windows Spotlight images suddenly stopped appearing on login screen

It keeps changing every so often.. with the option to like it or not.. that's Spotlight.

And I have the Spotlight preview working in Settings.

Note that you can't expect the Spotlight image to appear (on anything) on restart. That's handled differently- you may get a picture.


You could try enabling, say, Weather (one app) on your lock screen. Once I had been fiddling with this area and broke it, and found doing that helped at one stage (Spotlight wasn't working at all, so different to yours). I never got the preview back until I upgraded to the CU. It does seem relatively fragile.

Also check your registry is set as shown in the tutorial.
Show Lock Screen Background on Sign-in Screen in Windows 10 Windows 10 Customization Tutorials

Bree said:

At start up it's different, the sign in screen will be whatever is currently selected as 'Picture' on the lock screen settings of the last user to log in, even if you had Spotlight selected as the lock screen. By default this is the 'man cave' but you can set it to any picture you want. I've saved a favourite spotlight picture and set mine to use this.

Thanks a lot @Bree!!! It was driving me nuts!
I was pretty sure, that before CU, I was seeing the last Windows Spotlight image at startup or after signing out and not the image currently selected as 'Picture' on the lock screen settings of the last user to log in, even if I had Spotlight selected as the lock screen!

If you know that the one you described is the "correct" behavior (cause that's what I get!), then I must start questioning my memory...Alzheimer's disease is not that rare anymore...
Take care!

My Settings:



As for the Registry entry, I did check it and is 0.
Thnx again!

Have you checked the note in the tutorial?
If you turn on Show lock screen background picture on the sign-in screen, then you will need to make sure that you have Animate windows when minimizing and maximizing checked in your visual effects settings to prevent the lock screen background from not displaying properly.

Yes I did. It's 'Enabled' and to be sure I toggled it just in case!

BTW did you read Bree's explanation posted before?
My problem was at startup or logging off....he claims that this is normal behavior!...maybe he's right and I start developing Alzheimer's disease. :)

Could you please lock your PC (Win+L) and after unlocking it, log off and see if your images are the same. Cause mine aren't!
And sorry for putting you into that much trouble!!

See my comment 3rd sentence #21 - written while Bree was posting.

Yes, they are the same on lock, sleep... but if I recall, not on switching user.

I read it again....sorry I missed it before!!!
So according to you and Bree...I need to spend a fortune to see if I'm developing Alzheimer's disease as I was pretty sure that at startup (or log off) I was seeing a different picture every time, presumably the Spotlight image, before CU.

Thanks a lot guys! I'm a sick person.....

I do appreciate your time and help! :)

It's a bit hit and miss in my experience. Sometimes from restart I see the spotlight image (but no option to like it or not) and more often a picture. A case of spot(light) the difference maybe?

dalchina said:

It's a bit hit and miss in my experience. Sometimes from restart I see the spotlight image (but no option to like it or not) and more often a picture. A case of spot(light) the difference maybe?

Ohhhh.... thanks.
So after all I did see Spotlight images before CU at startup....I'm not that old you know.... You just saved me a fortune!!! :)

BTW There is a workaround, if someone is feeling like it.
You can create a task to copy on a schedule (say once a day) the image
C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\SystemData\S-1-5-21-XXXXXXXXX-XXXXXXXXX-XXXXXXXXX-1001\ReadOnly\LockScreen_O\LockScreen___1366_0768_notdimmed.jpg
(this is the current Spotlight image), where XXXXXXXXX-XXXXXXXXX-XXXXXXXXX is your current account
to
C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\SystemData\S-1-5-18\ReadOnly\LockScreen_W\LockScreen___1366_0768_notdimmed.jpg
(this the image currently selected as “Picture” on the lock screen settings of the last user to log in, even if Spotlight is selected as the lock screen Background).
keeping in mind that these folders and files are owned by TrustedInstaller!