Windows Spotlight not showing at startup

Windows spotlight didn't work for me even after trying those fixes mentioned on numerous sites. tried reinstalling several times to get it work and failed.

and then i decided to not login to my online Microsoft account and stay with a offline account and that fixed the problem partially.

however now i can see the image change if i press Windows + L or lock my pc using start menu or go to settings.
but its shows the same default image from windows every time i turn on my PC
my router is connected and turned on at windows startup


Any help would be appreciated. thank you.

jasonx3 said:

... i can see the image change if i press Windows + L or lock my pc using start menu or go to settings.
but its shows the same default image from windows every time i turn on my PC.

Dalchina said:

Assuming you are using the FCU (1709)....

I suspect not. The reason being that the behaviour @jasonx3 describes is exactly what I saw in CU (1703) and AU (1607).

Regardless of setting Spotlight as the lock screen and 'show lock screen background picture on sign in screen', the picture at start up was always whatever was selected as the lock screen's Picture setting (and if you'd never selected a Picture, that was the default 'cave' picture. Incidentally, in 1709 the default picture is now a mountain lake.)

Since updating to Fall Creators Update (1709) for the first time ever I see the Spotlight picture at start up.

Jasonx3, run Winver and check what version you have, if it's 1703 (or earlier) what you describe seems to be normal behaviour.

dalchina said:

Sometimes with 1703 you will see a non-Spotlight picture on booting, occasionally a spotlight picture but without the option to 'Like' it. Hence my question as to your Windows build.

You're lucky - I don't recall ever seeing the Spotlight picture at start up. It was always very unpredictable exactly what I'd see. 1709 is consistently the Spotlight picture at boot.

Yes I'm on Version 1703 (OS Build 15063.726)

On previous attempts to fix i tried both clearing the cache folder and re-registering the spotlight using Powershell
and ended up not working

Bree said:

I suspect not. The reason being that the behaviour @jasonx3 describes is exactly what I saw in CU (1703) and AU (1607).

Regardless of setting Spotlight as the lock screen and 'show lock screen background picture on sign in screen', the picture at start up was always whatever was selected as the lock screen's Picture setting (and if you'd never selected a Picture, that was the default 'cave' picture. Incidentally, in 1709 the default picture is now a mountain lake.)

Since updating to Fall Creators Update (1709) for the first time ever I see the Spotlight picture at start up.

Jasonx3, run Winver and check what version you have, if it's 1703 (or earlier) what you describe seems to be normal behaviour.

I ran the updater and now it's downloading the "Feature update to Windows 10, version 1709" let's see if this fix the issue.

jasonx3 said:

I ran the updater and now it's downloading the "Feature update to Windows 10, version 1709" let's see if this fix the issue.

That's quite a big step just to get Spotlight at start up :)

Spotlight has always been 'fragile'. You may still need to bookmark this tutorial for future use...

Reset and Re-register Windows Spotlight in Windows 10

Bree said:

That's quite a big step just to get Spotlight at start up :)

Spotlight has always been 'fragile'. You may still need to bookmark this tutorial for future use...

Reset and Re-register Windows Spotlight in Windows 10

will do

New problem appeared after updating to 1709. my start menu and notification stopped working. going back to older version