SOLVED Windows 10 Spotlight Frustrations

[Hotwire Cannon]

Hi,

I have looked all over the internet for possible solutions and so far nothing has worked and even Microsoft tech support said it was a bug that occurred when an update was distributed out (and yet it works perfectly fine on other computers) and I am hoping someone here might have some sort of solution that might work. I know this is trivial but it had been working correctly before and now it suddenly isn't.

The problem is when my lock screen under settings is set to Windows Spotlight, It no longer shows it on my sign-in screen constantly. It will randomly work one day but then goes back to the image like a comfort blanket for some reason (pardon the bad analogy but that is how i have viewed it). Unlike others, i'm not getting a black screen or blue screen with the links asking if you like what you see. in fact, i no longer get those links on start up at all, just the image.

I have tried cleaning out the storage for the images on my computer and even that doesn't work. I have tried going to Services under Administrative tools and changing the Delivery Optimization from Automatic (Delayed Start) to Automatic and that so far hasn't worked either. I did do a clean install of Windows 10 but that was only a temporary solution and worked for maybe three or four days before defaulting again. I tried also troubleshooting with the troubleshooter on the computer and it found no problems.

Anyone have anything new that might work permanently and fix this? I am running out of easy solutions.

Hotwire Cannon

 

[Regedit32]

Hi Hotwire,

Have you tried to re-register the App itself?

If not that could be worth a shot. To do that do the following:

• Right-click on Start and select Settings > Personalization then in left pane select Lock screen
• Clicking the Background field drop arrow and select Picture to temporarily disable Spotlight
• In your Search/Cortana field type powershell
• In the search results locate and right-click on Windows PowerShell and select Run as administrator
• When prompted by the User Account Control click Yes
• Give it a moment to load the screen. After a few seconds you'll see a prompt.
• At the prompt type or copy & paste the following:

Get-AppxPackage

Press Enter key

The PowerShell window will populate now with all the apps installed and their information.

In the top left corner of window left-click on the PowerShell icon then select Edit > Find

Sample image

Type ContentDeliverManager in the Find what field then click Find Next button:

You'll see your search highlighted in the main window. Click the Cancel button in the Find dialog then scroll down the window a little to review full details of the Microsoft.Windows.ContentDeliveryManager

Again left-click the PowerShell icon in the top left corner of window. Select Edit > Mark then with your mouse simply left-click & hold button down while dragging cursor over the install location path to highlight it. Release the mouse button when highlighted.

Sample image

Now the install location is highlighted, press CTRL + C to copy information to clipboard.

Now at the command prompt type:

• Add-AppxPackage -Register "

• Now press CTRL + V to paste Install Location full path, then type the following:

• \appxmanifest.xml" -DisableDevelopmentMode

Full command ends up looking like so:

Add-AppxPackage -Register "C:\Windows\SystemApps\Microsoft.Windows.ContentDeliveryManager_cw5n1h2txyewy\appxmanifest.xml" -DisableDevelopmentMode

Sample image of end result

Press Enter key

You will see some lines flash by, then be returned to a new prompt.

Close PowerShell and any other open programs.

Restart computer

Now try setting Spotlight again, then press Windows key + L to lock screen and confirm it took.​

Regards,

Regedit32

 

[Hotwire Cannon]

Okay, I will give this a shot and keep you posted.

Before I do, I want to make sure about something. Is this just to fix when I lock the computer? Because windows spotlight works fine on lock screen for some strange reason when the start-up lock screen is not functioning.

It's just when I start-up my computer from a shut-down that it has this problem. So it should also possibly help fix this?

Just wanted to clarify.

Hotwire Cannon

 

[Regedit32]

Yes that is the idea.

Worked for me any way.

 

[Bastet]

There is a simpler solution (hopefully) by Brink over on another forum.
https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/82156-reset-re-register-windows-spotlight-windows-10-a.html

 

[Regedit32]

Thank you for sharing that Bastet. A nice batch file.

Regards,

Regedit32

 

[Hotwire Cannon]

I tried the method that Regedit32 mentioned and it went back to the picture screen on start up randomly today again and it sometimes still stalls on the same image for a few days on spotlight as well.

I looked at the link that Bastet supplied and I think i tried something similar to this before manually and it also only lasted for a few days as a fix.

got any other possible suggestions?

Hotwire Cannon

 

[Bastet]

I tried the method that Regedit32 mentioned and it went back to the picture screen on start up randomly today again and it sometimes still stalls on the same image for a few days on spotlight as well.

I looked at the link that Bastet supplied and I think i tried something similar to this before manually and it also only lasted for a few days as a fix.

got any other possible suggestions?

Hotwire Cannon

When I had the problem before the clean install of Win 10 I manually removed the files within the Assets folder which didn't fix the problem, according to Brink's post there are two places/folders which affect the spotlight wallpaper.
When I restart I see the standard photo (Beach arch) but upon locking pc or sleeping it shows the spotlight photo.

 

[Hotwire Cannon]

Okay, sorry for the long awaited reply. I tried doing the method on the link provided by Bastet and again, it is reverting to a picture on startup.

I am not sure what else to try.

Hotwire Cannon

 

[Bastet]

Did you remember to switch to a lock screen photo (from spotlight) before running the fix, restarting the pc/laptop then switching back to spotlight? I forgot the first time I ran the fix & it didn't work.

 

[Hotwire Cannon]

yup. I did that step before anything else.

 

[Regedit32]

Are you running a metered connection at all?

If you are then the reduced bandwidth measure will prevent Spotlight from updating the image.

 

[Hotwire Cannon]

Never mind. It somehow solved itself after windows 10 creators update. I don't know how it did but it just did. Thank you everyone for your help.

 

[Regedit32]

Well that is good news.

I was asking about Metered connection, becaues if you had that setup, the Spotlight Feature is disabled as the whole point of Metered connection os to minimize data transfer.

I had a metered connection but after last update that setting was forgotten, and for now I'ne not bothered resetting it.