Restore not working Windows Spotlight

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3 min. reading

Windows Spotlight is a Windows 10 feature that displays you a beautiful images on your lock screen along with some location’s information and from time to time, some tips. On contrary to some users, I really like this feature and prefer to have different lock-screen image each day instead of the same dully picture.

When Windows Spotlight stops working there are several solutions in order to restore it.

If you’re lucky, the simplest one will give you expected results and you’re done in a matter of seconds. If you’re unlucky, you’ll end up messing up with Windows PowerShell, for which you need administrator privileges.

Update your system

  1. Open Start Menu.
  2. Type upda to see Check for updates search result.
  3. Click it to open this Settings’ section or hit Enter to confirm.
  4. Make sure the that you have all updates installed (including optional ones).

Background apps

  1. Open Start Menu.
  2. Type back to see Background apps search result.
  3. Click it to open this Settings’ section or hit Enter to confirm.
  4. Make sure that the setting for Microsoft Edge is turned on.

Clear Windows Spotlight cache

  1. Right-click desktop and select Personalize and go to Lock screen or Open Start Menu.
  2. Type lock to see Lock screen settings search result.
  3. Click it to open this Settings’ section or hit Enter to confirm.
  4. Make sure that the Windows Spotlight is turned off.
  5. Hit Windows+R to open the Run command.
  6. Type %USERPROFILE%/AppData\Local\Packages\ and click OK.
  7. Navigate to Microsoft.Windows.ContentDeliveryManager_cw5n1h2txyewy\LocalState\Assets folder.
  8. Delete any file you find in opened folder.
  9. Hit Windows+R to open the Run command again.
  10. Type %USERPROFILE%/AppData\Local\Packages\ and click OK.
  11. Navigate to Microsoft.Windows.ContentDeliveryManager_cw5n1h2txyewy\Settings folder.
  12. Rename roaming.lock file into roaming.lock.bak and settings.dat into settings.dat.bak respectively.
  13. Restart your computer.
  14. Open Lock screen settings again after restart.
  15. Make sure that the Windows Spotlight is turned on.
  16. Lock your station (hit Windows+L) to verify that everything is OK.

Reinstall Windows Spotlight feature

  1. Right-click desktop and select Personalize and go to Lock screen or Open Start Menu.
  2. Type lock to see Lock screen settings search result.
  3. Click it to open this Settings’ section or hit Enter to confirm.
  4. Make sure that the Windows Spotlight is turned on.
  5. Open Start Menu.
  6. Type powers to see Windows PowerShell search result.
  7. Right-click it and select Run as administrator from context menu.
  8. Execute following command:
Get-AppxPackage -allusers ContentDeliveryManager | foreach {Add-AppxPackage "$($_.InstallLocation)\appxmanifest.xml" -DisableDevelopmentMode -register }

Restart your computer after that and check, if Windows Spotlight is finally back?

Sources

If you need more information take a look at these:

  1. How to Fix It When Windows Spotlight Is Not Working on Windows 10
  2. Windows Spotlight lock screen picture won’t change
  3. How to fix Windows Spotlight Lock screen errors on Windows 10

If still no luck then… Google is your friend.

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