Windows Spotlight is a feature that changes your desktop wallpaper every day. It displays high-resolution images of animals, landscapes, landmarks and other natural phenomena.
Learn About This Picture
With Windows Spotlight turned on, your desktop background image will change every day to a new one downloaded from Microsoft.
Apart from being stunning images, you also have the opportunity to find out more about each picture.
In the top right hand corner of your screen, you’ll see a new icon has appeared “Learn about this picture”.
Go ahead, double left click on Learn About This Picture.
That’ll open your web browser and take you to a Microsoft Bing landing page which has all the information about the picture.
Apparently this one’s a bamboo forest in Japan.
Right Click on Learn About This Picture
If you right click on the Learn About This Picture icon, a menu will open allowing you to choose a different picture and also to vote on whether you like or dislike the current image.
Give it a thumbs up or thumbs down.
Is Windows Spotlight Safe?
Yes it is. Windows Spotlight is coming directly from Microsoft. And while you may or may not like it, the truth is that it’s safe. Your computer hasn’t been hit with some sort of virus or malware.
On the same subject, it’s also safe to click on the Learn About This Picture icon. That simply takes you to a Bing web page.
Where Do Windows Spotlight Pictures Come From?
Windows Spotlight pictures come from Bing and are downloaded to your computer by the Content Delivery Manager.
The Spotlight images are saved into a hidden folder on your system. You’ll need to replace the username for your actual user name.
C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\Packages\Microsoft.Windows.ContentDeliveryManager_cw5n1h2txyewy\LocalState\Assets
How to Save Spotlight Images
If you see a particular Spotlight image that you want to keep, or maybe you want to keep all of them, then you can, but it’s not as straightforward as you might imagine.
The Windows Spotlight pictures that are downloaded onto your computer are .jpg images, but they don’t have a file extension. Weird, I know, but that’s the way it is.
Navigate to the folder –
C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\Packages\Microsoft.Windows.ContentDeliveryManager_cw5n1h2txyewy\LocalState\Assets
Without a file extension, Windows doesn’t have any way of knowing what type of file they are.
So when you open the Assets folder, all you’ll see is blank files.
Not very helpful.
The best way to save a Windows Spotlight picture, is to copy and paste all of the files from the Content Manager Assets folder into a new folder on your system.
Then move to the new folder where you copied the files to add the .jpg file extension to the end of each file.
Give The Files A JPG File Extension.
Inside where you copied the Windows Spotlight files (images) to, you’ll see that they’re still just files without extensions.
You now need to add the .jpg file extension to each file.
You can do that by simply renaming them. Select one and then press F2 on your keyboard and add .jpg to the end of the file name.
Ignore The Small Files.
Windows Spotlight pictures are quite large files. Averaging over 300 KB, so you can ignore any of the smaller files that are less than 300 KB. They’re not going to be pictures. Data Storage Units Explained: Kilobytes, Megabytes, Gigabytes, and Terabytes
Enable Or Disable Windows Spotlight.
As with everything else in life, some people like Windows Spotlight and some people don’t.
The good news is that you can choose whether to have Spotlight turned on or turned off.
To enable or disable Windows Spotlight, right click on your desktop.
On the menu that opens, left click Personalise.
To Turn On Windows Spotlight.
To turn on the Windows Spotlight feature, on the Personalisation screen, click the Windows Spotlight, Dynamic Images button.
To Turn Off Windows Spotlight.
On the Personalisation screen, click on any of the other Windows theme options.
That’ll turn off the Windows Spotlight feature and return your desktop to a standard setup as regards background images.
Summary
Windows Spotlight is optional. If you like it, it’s actually rather good, but if you don’t, you’ll find it annoying.
The good news is that it’s not anything to be concerned over.
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