Question Setting a lock screen slideshow in Win11 was somewhat more difficult than expected. Try it for me please?

mikeymikec

Lifer
May 19, 2011
20,996
16,240
136
On the Windows install of my desktop PC, I have a bunch of images that I've liberated from the lock screen Spotlight service for several years, and since I switched off Spotlight (to get rid of the annoying extras on the lock screen), I got bored with one of the stock image. The liberated images were on my desktop but the feature has a problem with that location so I moved it onto the second drive, however no matter what folder I point it at, the file picker UI reckons there aren't any images in that folder, and if I select it anyway, Windows says that I have to use a folder with at least one image in.

Apparently this is quite a common problem with many sites suggesting possible workarounds, and I've tried most of the suggestions I've encountered, but still nothing. I also tried to set it up on a brand new clean install of 23H2 and it does the same thing.

I'd be curious to know whether people here have similar issues.
 

Dr_Web

Junior Member
Sep 3, 2025
14
10
36
Make sure the folder is indexed Control Panel, Indexing Options, add that drive/folder. Sometimes the file picker won’t see images if indexing is disabled.
Copy one of the images into a brand new folder on that same drive and point Windows to that folder often forces it to refresh.
Check that the files actually have .jpg/.png extensions; Spotlight grabs sometimes end up without proper extensions and Windows won’t detect them.
If all else fails, try symlinking that folder into your Pictures directory mklink /D "C:\Users\YourUser\Pictures\Spotlight "D:\Spotlight". Then point Windows to the Pictures\Spotlight folder.

It’s definitely a long-standing quirk, but usually one of the above gets around it.