Windows Spotlight is a feature that roundup and displays beautiful images from Bing as the background for the login or lock screen. Occasionally, this feature may stop working, and images may get stuck and not change or may just stop loading entirely.
There are, however, two easy ways to fix when Windows Spotlight stops working. You may choose to run a command in Powershell to reset the feature, or you may opt to clear the system files to force the service to re-initialize the next time you restart the computer.
Causes of Windows Spotlight Not Changing
Occasionally, when a Windows Update crash, it may cause the Windows Spotlight service to stop loading new Bing images for the lock screen background.
In other cases, image files or the Windows Spotlight system files can become corrupt. This may cause the service to crash and windows spotlight not changing.
How to Fix Windows Spotlight Not Changing
The following steps will work you through a fix to Windows Spotlight not changing.
Check Your Network Connection
Remember that Spotlight downloads lock screen images from the internet, and without that, Spotlight won’t be able to rotate through images. So you may want to check that out first.
If a sound connection isn’t the problem, proceed to the next step.
Stop the Windows Spotlight Service
Select the Start menu, type “Settings,” or just press windows key + I, to pop out the Settings app. Select Personalization> Lock Screen, and then change the Background dropdown to either Picture or Slideshow.
Using Powershell
Re-register the Windows Spotlight service using Powershell. Launch the command prompt as an administrator. Type the following commands and press Enter after each.
powershell
Get-AppXPackage -AllUsers |Where-Object
{$_.InstallLocation -like "*SystemApps*"}
|Foreach {Add-AppxPackage -DisableDevelopmentMode
-Register "$($_.InstallLocation)\AppXManifest.xml"}Once this is done, change the Personalization setting you changed above back to Windows Spotlight. Restart the computer and check if Windows Spotlight now works.
Using Windows Explorer
If the previous step (Powershell) didn’t work, you could try forcing a reset of Windows Stoplight. To do this, use Windows Explorer to navigate to the following path for your user profile: Press windows key + R, then copy and paste the location below.
%USERPROFILE%/AppData\Local\Packages\Microsoft.Windows. ContentDeliveryManager_cw5n1h2txyewy\Settings
Rename the settings.dat and roaming.lock files by adding .bak to the end of the files. Once finished, restart the computer and test to see if Windows Spotlight works again.
Delete obsolete Files
After renaming settings and roaming files, delete Spotlight obsolete files: These are previous images collected from Bing. If any of these are corrupt, it could potentially affect Windows Spotlight. Deleting these files can help. Use Windows Explorer to navigate to the following path for your user profile: Press windows key + R then copy and paste the following location below:
%USERPROFILE%/AppData\Local\Packages\Microsoft.Windows. ContentDeliveryManager_cw5n1h2txyewy\LocalState\Assets
Select all of the files and delete them. Restart the computer and check if Windows Spotlight is working.
Windows Spotlight Not Changing should be fixed after a restart of your PC. Don’t forget to change the option back to the Windows spotlight in your settings > Personalization.
If Windows Spotlight is still not working, try the next following fix.
Turn On Background Apps
If Windows Spotlight still isn’t working, then some necessary background apps may not be running. Select the Start menu, type “Settings,” then select the Settings app. Select Privacy > Background apps, then make sure the setting for Microsoft Edge is turned on.
Force Windows Update
If it still isn’t updating the lock screen image after you’ve completed all of those steps, you may have outdated Windows files. Perform a manual Windows update to ensure your system is completely up to date.
Update Device Drivers
Faulty or corrupt device drivers on your Windows system can cause many unpredictable issues. To ensure this isn’t the case, make sure all of your device drivers are fully updated to the latest versions.
Wait 24 Hours
Sometimes, when Microsoft Spotlight first launches on your computer, it can take up to a day for the app to fully sync images with Bing. Before moving on to the last and final step, give your system a day, then check to see if Microsoft Spotlight is working.
Perform a Windows System Restore
As a last resort, you may need to fully restore your Windows system.
Fixing windows Spotlight not changing usually doesn’t come to the point of a system restore, at the first trial of the Powershell command prompt, the fix should be initiated to bring you beautiful pictures from Bing.