Unable to set a lock screen background image (Win10).

RodRocket said:

I tried the solution above, and it worked perfectly.
The link is:
Lockscreen issues on Windows 8.1 - Microsoft Community

This worked perfectly for me on Windows 10

mrgeek said:

Glad the simple one registry edit worked for you.
For those who say they do not have this entry, it here's a screenshot from a laptop with Windows 10 pre-installed (NOT upgraded from 8.1, like mine), after you regedit and navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Lock Screen .

You can see the entries you should have. If you don't, export your Lock Screen folder as a backup and I have attached a link to my OneDrive of a rar file of the exported working reg folder. Extract, double click or right click/ 'Merge' to put in your registry and see if this fixes your lock screen choose picture problems. Restore your backup folder, if it doesn't. Hope this helps somebody.

Attachment 33166

OneDrive - lock screen reg folder

Thank you. i tried both registry fixes and only yours fixed my problem. (well, who knows, maybe i needed both - i did not revert to my original reg after attempting the first fix).

Guys why are you killing yourselves with this registry fix if there is a perfectly easy solution. You guys are on windows 10 right? Edit the image a little by lowering/increasing the brightness by one (Use the photos app as an editor). Click save a copy and then set it as lock screen. Now what it does is basically save a new fresh copy which isn't corrupt or anything. I don't know if it works on you but it worked for me.

My issue started in window 8.1, it's too bad because one of the only reasons I upgraded was in hopes that this issue would get resolved. Before today I was stuck on some random image from a Bing app I had about a year ago, but I renamed my System Data folder like outlined in one of the forms and now I just get a blank red screen for the lock screen. When I try to change my lock screen picture, it doesn't even give me an error, it just spins and spins for hours and hours!!!!

After much reading I managed to fix this problem.

I didn't have an image at the lock screen at startup. Whenever I tried to change the image to something of my preference it showed gray screen with endless loading.

Anyway, here is what I've done:

First I disabled apps that show on lockscreen:




Then I removed everything from [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Lock Screen] , or at least remove most things from it. (The reason is the key will be populated with info later)

Or you can use this reg key with minimal entries: https://app.box.com/s/zdqvhh2cnqqth0hifw3hnb4b3v3eu0hm

After that navigate to C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows

There you will find SystemData folder.

You have to take ownership of that folder. Here is a tutorial how: LINK

After that you can either rename the folder to SystemData_bak or delete it (your choise).
Finally restart explorer. Open Task Manager, find Windows Explorer and click on Restart.

And voila I was able to change the lock screen image.

You can check the reg key is now populated and SystemData is recreated.

zdzdz said:

After much reading I managed to fix this problem.

I didn't have an image at the lock screen at startup. Whenever I tried to change the image to something of my preference it showed gray screen with endless loading.

Anyway, here is what I've done:

First I disabled apps that show on lockscreen:




Then I removed everything from [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Lock Screen] , or at least remove most things from it. (The reason is the key will be populated with info later)

Or you can use this reg key with minimal entries: https://app.box.com/s/zdqvhh2cnqqth0hifw3hnb4b3v3eu0hm

After that navigate to C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows

There you will find SystemData folder.

You have to take ownership of that folder. Here is a tutorial how: LINK

After that you can either rename the folder to SystemData_bak or delete it (your choise).
Finally restart explorer. Open Task Manager, find Windows Explorer and click on Restart.

And voila I was able to change the lock screen image.

You can check the reg key is now populated and SystemData is recreated.

I tried your method twice and I still have the grey box with the spinning dots. I am still unable to set my own lock screen photo. The whole PITA of gaining access to the SYSTEMDATA folder is ridiculous. It shouldn't be that secure and I'm certain that that is a big part of the issue. Glad this worked for you, but I'm still hosed. It's almost worth re-installing the OS, but I feel this happened after one of the many, many updates to Windows 10 and it would just happen again after all the trouble of doing so. I Have a 2012 R2 Essentials server running and restored a backup from several weeks ago, but the problem was still there. I could try going back further, but again, it gets to a point of diminishing return for the trouble.

A little background. I upgraded to Windows 10 from Windows 7 Ultimate. After the upgrade was complete, I did a Reset this PC to essentially get a fresh install of Windows 10. I was initially able to set a Lock Screen background and it was working for a few weeks. I then had a display issue when I was using RDP from work to my computer. All the fonts in Chrome were super small. I figured it was just the remote session, but when I got home it looked the same. I rebooted, same issue. I can't recall exactly what I did but it was after it had run updates. I recall uninstalling a Flash update and that seemed to fix the issue I was having, but then I noticed my Lock Screen no longer being the image I chose and started trying to fix that issue. The Lock Screen Apps do not appear on the Lock Screen as well. So at this point it may be more advantageous to just reset the PC again.

mrgeek said:

Glad the simple one registry edit worked for you.
For those who say they do not have this entry, it here's a screenshot from a laptop with Windows 10 pre-installed (NOT upgraded from 8.1, like mine), after you regedit and navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Lock Screen .

You can see the entries you should have. If you don't, export your Lock Screen folder as a backup and I have attached a link to my OneDrive of a rar file of the exported working reg folder. Extract, double click or right click/ 'Merge' to put in your registry and see if this fixes your lock screen choose picture problems. Restore your backup folder, if it doesn't. Hope this helps somebody.

Attachment 33166

OneDrive - lock screen reg folder

This worked for me. After many attempts with advice from other users, this was the solution. Thank you very much for making that .reg file available and not attaching some malicious software to it. I appreciate this!

I was having the same problem, cant change the lockscreen bg image and facing with endless loading circle. First, i tried restart my computer and tried again, unlike my expectations it isnt fixed. When i searched it on the internet, figured out that it is a common problem requires sth to be done. But i didnt want to follow long steps, i felt lazy. Instead i turned off wifi and tried it again. It worked. :)

Panther said:

I am currently unable to set a lock screen background image (Windows 10 Pro 64-bit). When on the Lock Screen customization window, it is pretty bare with no images to choose from. Browsing and choosing any image results in nothing happening and it does not add it (refer to LockScreen image attached). If I try to set it when viewing any image it has the error "Can't set as lock screen. Make sure the file isn't damaged and try again." (refer to PhotoSet image attached). Also note that the Slideshow option is not in the dropdown either.

Some background on this is probably needed, so here's what has happened/been done:
In Windows 8.1 I customized the default lock screen to a custom image using the guide at http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials...ndows-8-a.html (the manual method/Option 2). Yesterday I upgraded to Windows 10 and it set the lock screen to a basic color. Then the fun started...

1. Lock Screen customization appeared normal/functional. Tried choosing a different image or custom image. It would appear set, but lock screen would not change (even after reboot).

2. Tried troubleshooting by taking the same actions as in Windows 8.1. Did the same actions for the new folders that Windows 10 uses in the %ProgramData%\Microsoft\Windows\SystemData\ folder (deleted the images within the lettered folder(s)).

3. Checked every Registry Key I found mention of when searching online (none needing to be changed).

4. I renamed the SystemData folder as a website recommended. Windows did make a new, fresh copy. However this is what kicked it over to the state I am in now. Restoring the old folder did no good.

5. Before coming here I did one last thing. I ran sfc /scannow. It claimed the img100 was corrupt and replaced it, but nothing changed.

Anyone have any idea what I can do to restore the functionality of the Lock Screen customization without reinstalling Windows? Note that I am not trying to change the logon screen background...even though I would love to do that too. Other than this issue everything is running great/perfect.

Hi,

If your machine has group policy set to Disable "Require Cntrl Alt Del", this will cause your lock screen to not show selected image. Machine doesn't have to be on a domain as this can be set locally as well. So, I have an image, I saved it as a .png and put it in Windows\Web\LockScreen...you can put yours anywhere.

Next, do the following steps and it will fix the issue:
Go to regedt

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Personalization (if personalization doesn't exist, create it)

Create a new string value named LockScreenImage.

Set its value data to the full path of the desired image which will be used as the lock screen image (ex. c:\windows\web\lockscreen\imagename.png

altae said:

I've got the same issue. I haven't got the mentioned registry key and setting the lockscreen image through the photos app does not work neither even though it says that the lockscreen image had been correctly set. Appears to be a bug of this Windows 10 build.

Try creating the key, ( HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Personalization ) it's easy enough. Then all you need is to create a dword called NoLockScreen with a value of 0 . This should rectify your problem