Solved Lock Screen "Windows Spotlight", Without the Travel Pop-Ups?

pacificSurf · May 3, 2025

I dont mind the slideshow factory photos and everything on the lock screen. I want to remove just these search bar travel guide spam things that I circled in red below. is there a way to do that?

I can turn off windows spotlight, but that removes the whole background too. So is there no way to keep this background effect without the travel & search popups?

glasskuter · May 4, 2025

If you use windows spotlight as your lock screen, there is not way to remove the text overlay AFAIK. You would need to set your lock screen as picture or slideshow to get rid of the text.

glasskuter · May 4, 2025

I did a little reading, try this per our friend co-pilot..

Open Settings: Press the Windows key + i to open Settings.
Go to Personalization: Click on "Personalization".
Go to Lock screen: Click on "Lock screen".
Change the Background:
- Temporary Change (for disabling tips): If you want to disable the tips and tricks while keeping Windows Spotlight, change the background to "Picture" or "Slideshow" temporarily.
- Permanent Change: You can change the background to "Picture" or "Slideshow" permanently if you prefer not to have the Windows Spotlight background.
Disable Tips and Tricks:
- When the background is set to "Picture" or "Slideshow", you should see a setting that says "Get fun facts, tips, and more on your lock screen." Turn it off by toggling the switch to the "off" position.
Switch Back to Windows Spotlight (Optional): If you want to switch back to Windows Spotlight later, you can do so. The tips and tricks will remain disabled, as the setting was disabled in step 5.

pacificSurf · May 5, 2025

glasskuter said:
I did a little reading, try this per our friend co-pilot..

Open Settings: Press the Windows key + i to open Settings.

Go to Personalization: Click on "Personalization".

Go to Lock screen: Click on "Lock screen".

Change the Background:

Temporary Change (for disabling tips): If you want to disable the tips and tricks while keeping Windows Spotlight, change the background to "Picture" or "Slideshow" temporarily.

Permanent Change: You can change the background to "Picture" or "Slideshow" permanently if you prefer not to have the Windows Spotlight background.

Disable Tips and Tricks:

When the background is set to "Picture" or "Slideshow", you should see a setting that says "Get fun facts, tips, and more on your lock screen." Turn it off by toggling the switch to the "off" position.

Switch Back to Windows Spotlight (Optional): If you want to switch back to Windows Spotlight later, you can do so. The tips and tricks will remain disabled, as the setting was disabled in step 5.

Thanks, gave it a try, but did not work. Still has the tips travel pop up things. Guess it's just not possible we'll have to use a different lock screen option

Steve C · May 6, 2025

Try the Dynamic Theme app which lets you set Bing as the picture and other options.

garlin · May 6, 2025

Run these commands as Administrator:

Code:

reg add HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\ContentDeliveryManager /v "RotatingLockScreenOverlayEnabled" /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f
reg add HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\ContentDeliveryManager /v "SubscribedContent-338387Enabled" /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f

pacificSurf · May 6, 2025

garlin said:

Run these commands as Administrator:

Code:

reg add HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\ContentDeliveryManager /v "RotatingLockScreenOverlayEnabled" /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f
reg add HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\ContentDeliveryManager /v "SubscribedContent-338387Enabled" /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f

Added those and restarted, did not effect it. Oh well, was worth the try!

garlin · May 7, 2025

Oops, my bad! The value should be "/d 0" not /d 1".

pacificSurf · May 7, 2025

garlin said:
Oops, my bad! The value should be "/d 0" not /d 1".

Tried, restarted, but still didnt work. I wonder if it has anything to do with the fact that I first ran those keys with 1. But I then re-ran them correctly with the 0. Are there duplicates with "1" interfering?

garlin · May 7, 2025

Each of the SubscribedContents is a different data feed, ie. Wallpapers, Tips, etc.

I noticed the flags switched back to 1 (again). Are you using a MS Account, belong to a domain or something special about your user account? Some of those factors might resync the settings to a different default.

pacificSurf · May 7, 2025

garlin said:
Each of the SubscribedContents is a different data feed, ie. Wallpapers, Tips, etc.

I noticed the flags switched back to 1 (again). Are you using a MS Account, belong to a domain or something special about your user account? Some of those factors might resync the settings to a different default.

No, setup with a local account. No MS account or domain/work thing. 11 pro. Just my local admin account.

The RotatingScreenOverlay is still set to 0, correctly, right? It looks like it's just the subscribedkey value that is still 1, right?

If so, could it be because I pasted both of those strings into CMD at the same time, and hit enter, it said successfully added. But maybe only the first string is going to get added, you can't add two strings at the same time simultaneously? So the 2nd was ignored?

garlin · May 7, 2025

If you copy two different lines into a CMD window, it counts as two different commands (in a row) because of the line break.

pacificSurf · May 8, 2025

garlin said:
If you copy two different lines into a CMD window, it counts as two different commands (in a row) because of the line break.

Okay, nevermind then on that theory.
So I just changed the value of the subscribedcontent string to "0" manually in regedit, restarted, and it worked!
So It must have just not registered the change the 1st time when I did it via CMD for some reason. But the sign in screen is now popup/spam free! Thanks so much

corsairmarks · Dec 1, 2025

Found this thread on 2025-12-01 - at this time, setting these registry settings to 0 properly disables the Microsoft tips while still using the Spotlight background images.

Thanks, this is exactly what I needed!

pacificSurf · Dec 1, 2025

my windows spotlight option dissapeared from the drop down, and I now just have a blue lockscreen. Did it get renamed to "weather and more" ??

FYI, I have no organization managing my settings idk why it says that. This is a personal computer. Windows 11 pro admin account.

corsairmarks · Dec 2, 2025

corsairmarks said:
Found this thread on 2025-12-01 - at this time, setting these registry settings to 0 properly disables the Microsoft tips while still using the Spotlight background images.

Thanks, this is exactly what I needed!

Can't figure out how to edit my previous post.

Upon setting SubscribedContent-338387Enabled to 0, my lock screen continue to display the Windows Spotlight images, but the text disappeared. However, upon reboot, my system set itself to use a static image as my lock screen (it reused the desktop background).

For the record, I am using an Administrator account that is tied to my Microsoft account. Unsure if this would work differently if I was using a local-only account, and/or if I was using a user-level account. This laptop is new-to-me, so I have left myself as an admin in the short run, while I am setting things up. I'll be creating a local-only administrator and demoting my account to a user once I have gotten most of my basics installed and configured.

pacificSurf · Dec 2, 2025

corsairmarks said:
Can't figure out how to edit my previous post.

Upon setting SubscribedContent-338387Enabled to 0, my lock screen continue to display the Windows Spotlight images, but the text disappeared. However, upon reboot, my system set itself to use a static image as my lock screen (it reused the desktop background).

For the record, I am using an Administrator account that is tied to my Microsoft account. Unsure if this would work differently if I was using a local-only account, and/or if I was using a user-level account. This laptop is new-to-me, so I have left myself as an admin in the short run, while I am setting things up. I'll be creating a local-only administrator and demoting my account to a user once I have gotten most of my basics installed and configured.

I can confirm new behavior!

So I manually went into regedit and changed the value of SubscribedContent-338387 to 0, went to lockscreen settings, chose windows spotlight.

Went back to Regedit, and SubscribedContent-338387Enabled is back to a value of 1! Tried restarting too. it seems to self correct the registry back to a vlaue of 1 now if you attempt to use windows spotlight feature.

I have local account only, admin. So I dont think that will make difference.

My GIF recording too big to attach here, but you can see when I changed value to zero, the windows spotlight auto changed to "Picture". I then change it back to spotlight, close regedit and reopen regedit, and that value is back to 1! See here brave_ubt3cm0qfG.gif

Brian48 · Dec 3, 2025

corsairmarks said:
Upon setting SubscribedContent-338387Enabled to 0, my lock screen continue to display the Windows Spotlight images, but the text disappeared. However, upon reboot, my system set itself to use a static image as my lock screen (it reused the desktop background).

Yep, same for me, checked after a few days when the Default blue window kept appearing on the lock screen and sure enough "lock screen background" had changed to picture.
Looks like we're stuck with either seeing ads or using a static picture

Using MS Admin Account BTW

Solved Lock Screen "Windows Spotlight", Without the Travel Pop-Ups?

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