Reset and Re-register Windows Spotlight in Windows 10  

TooLate 2020 said:

The answer is simple, once you know it! After trying all the fixes to resurrect Spotlight (Win10 Pro / 1709) which all resulted in failure, the simple answer was found: Settings > Privacy > Background Apps: Edge & Settings must be set to ON. Spotlight still doesn't work perfectly - but - another Win10 reset should fix the registry issues primarily with LockScreen > Creative which is basically empty. This is what was done:
Completely deleted: Microsoft.Windows.ContentDeliveryManager (must have permission - easy way TakeOwnerShip Pro App) > restored (using PowerShell Admin. approach) Microsoft.Windows.ContentDeliveryManager (no errors) > turned ON Edge & Settings (which had been set to off > clicked Win Key + L > Spotlight. Now, it's not perfect: Preview Blank, Options (Like What You See, etc.) don't appear on the login Spotlight but do appear when the Win Key+L is used to view Spotlight. Disclaimer: This worked for me...but...every user setup is different. Additionally, Spotlight appears to have been coded by the Mad Scientist featured on Robot Chicken!!!

Wow. This fixed everything. I turned on both Edge and Settings to be running in the background, then ran bat file and switched it to Spotlight and in a couple of minutes, Spotlight is working again.

Thank you all.

Thank you, TooLate 2020 and lepa71!

Spotlight is back to life.
I still don't see the "Do you like this?", but at least it's showing an image.

Update: Since the previous post on this issue where I stated: "Now, it's not perfect: Preview Blank, Options (Like What You See, etc.) don't appear on the login Spotlight but do appear when the Win Key+L is used to view Spotlight." Everything has righted itself...Spotlight Preview shows the current image, Like What You See, etc. appears, as it should, when the Spotlight Lockscreen is left on at log-in, can change the image to what is liked and that image changes to show new images. And, the ad notifications on the screen are gone - only links related to the image are shown. Guess it's true: Win10 OS works in mysterious ways....LOL

TooLate 2020 - when you say completely delete Microsoft.Windows.ContentDeliveryManager are you referring to the directory or the registry?
C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Local\Packages\Microsoft.Windows.ContentDeliveryManager_cw5n1h2txyewy\
or the registry (where there are quite a number of references).
I too have tried everything - even this fix via the bat file. The problem eventually comes back. The problem never completely goes away in that I do not ever get the "Like" prompt or any app showing up on the lock screen.

"C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Local\Packages\Microsoft.Windows.ContentDeliveryManager_cw5n1h2txyewy" This is only what I deleted and reinstalled. Get-AppxPackage Microsoft.Windows.ContentDeliveryManager -allusers | foreach {Add-AppxPackage -register "$($_.InstallLocation)\appxmanifest.xml" -DisableDevelopmentMode} "Like what you see" restored itself after a couple of system shutdowns / startups. "The problem eventually comes back." Yes...in my case used SpyProtector history delete function and Spotlight was gone along with the History Pane in IE11....restored Spotlight using my original process. Win10 is at best: fragile...doing anything out of the ordinary, can, and often does, result in unknown consequences.

After taking ownership of the directory I was able to delete it. I performed the reinstall and this technique seems to do a much better job of at least partially restoring functionality. However after many reboots, transitions into and out of spotlight, the image never changes (at least it is a different one), no "Like it" prompt and no app.
I am wondering about HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Lock Screen\Creative\CreativeJson registry entry. How can this be reset? It does show "feedbackProvided":false as it should but all the rest of the history from when it was working is still present. Could that be messing things up? How would I go about resetting this or is that even possible?

I usually find that the reset spotlight method works, however this time once finished the spotlight picture in the settings app just showed a blank grey box and if you did Win+L you just got a deep blue coloured background instead of the spotlight picture

I tried another method which finally worked but I think its attempts to fix far more features than just the spotlight so I don't know what may have changed/broken in other apps.

Code:

Get-AppXPackage -AllUsers |Where-Object {$_.InstallLocation -like "*SystemApps*"} | Foreach {Add -AppxPackage -DisableDevelopmentMode -Register "$($_.InstallLocation)\AppXManifest.xml"}

I had thought that this method had also failed because again the grey spotlight box appeared in settings, so I just got bored and left it and then I suddenly noticed that the grey had made way to a new spotlight picture.

I think whatever method you use you do need to wait about a minute before trying Win+L as there have been times when running the original fix that I haven't been patient enough

After a few days spotlight did not work and the lock screen picture went back to the "backpack" pic. I repeated the process again to restore the picture functionality but it will not last. At no point does "like what you see" ever return. What a lousy application.

If you are like me and things to work... move on, this one never will.

Bree said:

Normally that's only seen when started up and signed in and then the screen is then locked. Try WinKey+L

At no point means means whenever - at boot, when locked, when screen saver is engaged, whenever.
And further, now that I have had to use this method several times - it seems to go away faster now as well. Ridiculous. I wish I could let it go...