Remove "fun" facts from Spotlight lock screen in Windows 10 Home (1803)

Question

UPDATE: I tried all solution proposed in How to disable “link your phone” links on the lock screen? and none of them seem to work on Windows 10 Home (version 1803), so this is probably not a duplicate question.

I like Spotlight on my lock screen, it keeps things fresh :). And with the 1803 update, I get new images more frequently, which is good. But with that same update some new "fun" facts were added, which mess up the picture.

Can I remove these facts ?

In the lock screen settings for Spotlight, there is no option to remove these:

I even switched to the lock screen picture settings to deactivate the setting, but that doesn't help either:

I already searched the internet, and some say to use the Group Policy settings, but they are not available on windows 10 Home edition.

Can this be done, or do I have to live with the "fun" facts ?

Update: I installed the Group Policy Editor and enabled the suggested option:

But I still have the facts displayed on my lock screen, even after a reboot.

Great question. Today I had **"_For obvious reasons_ this body of water is known as Mirror Lake _because of the reflective quality of its surface_"** Neither end of that sentence needs to be present, and certainly not both (if something is "obvious", you don't need to explain it. If these "fun facts" did not talk to you like you were a 5 year old they'd be less annoying. Planting text in the middle of a beautiful image is also really dumb. — Clifford, Jun 02 '21 at 09:27

Nick · Answer 1 · 2019-01-14T17:19:03.893

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It appears that at some point in the last year or two, the "Get fun facts" checkbox is no longer honored when you switch back to the Windows Spotlight option.

I have two Windows 10 machines, both build 1803. Both are set to use Windows Spotlight on the lock screen, but the older one does not show the tips and advertisements while the new one does. This was driving me crazy so I decided to dig into it, and I found this question while looking for an answer.

There are some non-GPO registry settings related to "subscribed content" in Windows 10 and one of these appears to control the lock screen tips. Under the key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\ContentDeliveryManager

Set the DWORD value ContentDeliveryAllowed to 1.
Set the DWORD value RotatingLockScreenEnabled to 1.
Set the DWORD value RotatingLockScreenOverlayEnabled to 0.
Set the DWORD value SubscribedContent-338387Enabled to 0.

Why this works:

ContentDeliveryAllowed must be enabled for any of the dynamic content to work and should be enabled by default unless you've turned it off with policy. RotatingLockScreenEnabled enables the dynamic background picture instead of a static one. RotatingLockScreenOverlayEnabled is the "Get fun facts" option in the Settings app and setting it to 0 disables it.

Each of the SubscribedContent values appears to control a different part of the Windows UI, such as the start menu, taskbar, notifications area, etc., and 338387 seems to be the one for showing tips on the lock screen.

edited Jan 14 '19 at 17:19

answered Sep 24 '18 at 20:06

Nick

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These days there are keys `SubscribedContent-338388Enabled` and `SubscribedContent-338389Enabled`. – Phrogz Aug 15 '20 at 02:47
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@Phrogz and what do either of those represent? – Unknow0059 Oct 30 '20 at 18:28
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SubscribedContent-338387Enabled is still the one to use. You have to create the key yourself. – banana Feb 19 '21 at 12:16
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My (relatively) new Windows 10 install had 33837, 8, 9 keys all set to 1. It had `RotatingLockScreenOverlayEnabled` set to `0` but still showed the fun facts. With value `...7` also set to `0`, no fun facts appear. – NetMage Jul 22 '21 at 18:15
BTW this is Win10 Enterprise 21H1 (19043.985) 64-bit. – NetMage Jul 22 '21 at 18:20
Do these changes require a reboot? – golimar Dec 09 '21 at 11:01
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This hack worked for windows 11 (home) too! – Ragav Ssr Feb 05 '22 at 08:54
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This removes "Like what you see?" : or the option to switch to a new picture. – Mr. Doge Mar 20 '22 at 12:30
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This worked for me on Windows 10 without reboot – AlbertGarde Aug 18 '22 at 11:02
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Works for Win11 22H2. Should be accepted answer. – Mu-Tsun Tsai Dec 20 '22 at 02:27
Works for Win10 Pro 22H2. Thank you! – Chris Stahl Jan 21 '23 at 15:09
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Works on 22H2 19045.2604. I had to create 338387 key. Is there a way to keep "Like what you see" but disable other tips? – Ledorub Mar 15 '23 at 22:59

James L. · Answer 2 · 2019-06-06T09:20:31.333

The only way that seems to consistently remove the ads but continue to rotate the spotlight pictures is to enable secure sign-in, which forces you to press ctrl+alt+del to get to the sign-in screen.

It is annoying to require extra keystrokes to sign-in, but it's worth it to get rid of the ads.

To enable secure sign-in, open the group policy editor via gpedit.msc, and look for:

Set its value to Disabled. Then reboot.

score 4 · Answer 3 · answered Jul 18 '21 at 15:24

The existing answers didn't work for me. I'm using 21H1 build 19043.1110.

I have disabled the overlay by changing the security settings of the folder that stores the metadata for the lockscreen. Replace <USER NAME> in the path below.

C:\Users\<USER NAME>\AppData\Local\Packages\Microsoft.Windows.ContentDeliveryManager_cw5n1h2txyewy\LocalState\TargetedContentCache\v3\338387

Right click the folder to open the properties, the go to the security tab and click Advanced. The click Add, select principal the user "Everyone", select type Disallow, and check only the "Write" permission. Then select OK in each window.

I gave this a go, and so far, so good. I just nuked everything in the folder and marked it readonly. — Mattwmaster58, Aug 16 '21 at 02:16

Remove "fun" facts from Spotlight lock screen in Windows 10 Home (1803)

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