Can’t change lock screen picture – W10 Home

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Is there any way to change the lock screen picture in Win10 Home? When I go to Personalize and then Lock Screen, there are five default photos I can choose from, but the Browse button is shaded and doesn’t function.
Is this something that doesn’t work in Home, but does in other editions?
Is there a registry hack to let me put my own photo there?

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Have a look at the entry from zdzdz2305 dated October 31, 2015 in this answers.microsoft.com forum post[/B].

Hope this helps…

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Thanks for the link, Rick. I had already tried most of the suggestions, and the ones I hadn’t tried, didn’t work.
Interestingly, the main suggestion of opening the picture in the MS picture app didn’t give the option to set as lock screen, only set as “wallpaper”. But I don’t want this picture for my desktop.

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Personalization options are typically disabled if Windows is not activated.

--Joe

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Joe, I wish it were that simple. My Windows is activated.

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Is your account a standard account or an administrator?

--Joe

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My account is administrator.

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Have you tried running SFC /SCANNOW from an elevated command prompt?

--Joe

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As your suggestion, I ran SCANNOW and then tried to change the ock Screen. The ‘Browse button is still grayed out.

45767-Screen-Lock

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Make sure that HKLM:SOFTWAREPoliciesMicrosoftWindowsPersonalization NoLockScreen=0. This one tripped me up with the exact same result. I’d turned off lock screen before the AU and then I couldn’t change the image.

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Went to regedit to try your suggestion, but the HKLM:SOFTWAREPoliciesMicrosoftWindowsPersonalization wasn’t there. There is one in HKCurrentUsers/Software/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion:

45784-regedit-lockscreen

Any suggestions?

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Another place to check:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionAuthenticationLogonUISessionData AllowLockScreen=1

Have you tried creating another account and seeing if it acts differently? If a new account fails in the same way, it has to be an HKLM or something not quite right with the Win 10 install. That means a reinstall/reset…

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Thanks, Phil.

I confirmed that HKLM key – that’s what I have.

At your suggestion, I created another user and then went to the Lock Screen settings in personalization. Same thing, the ”browse’ button to change the picture is greyed out, just like in my administrator account.

I have another machine that I just did the Anniversary Upgrade on. It also no longer lets me change the lock screen picture, so I’m assuming now that it’s an AU bug.

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I just checked a Win 10 Home VM that was upgraded to AU from a clean install of 1511 (currently 1607-14393.187). It has no additional software beyond Windows installed and no changes made to any registry entries. It is a VM that I keep as close to “vanilla” as possible just to be able to check out things that I mess up elsewhere ;^). In this VM, I can change the lock screen picture in settings like your image in post #9. There must have been something changed before the upgrade. Perhaps a reinstall from the Media Creation Tool is in order. (Note lock screen and spotlight have some interrelationships. I don’t recall what they were during my testing. These interrelationships appeared in the AU. I had nolockscreen set before the AU and I could change the picture although the picture didn’t show. After the AU I had to allow the lockscreen so I could change it to a picture. In fact after setting a lockscreen picture, one can turn lockscreen on (post 10) and keep the lockscreen image from changing.)

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My machines were upgraded from 8.1, so a reinstall is not an easy option.

I did notice that the lock screen menu has a message on top that may be the reason, although I have no idea what ‘organization’ it refers to, other than the OEM loading of the original Windows. (Green circle added by me)

45834-ls1

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That message is a clear indication of some HKLM registry entry blocking your Lock Screen changes. You might Google the message and lock screen; see if you get any hit that’s been missed. The message relates to a registry setting set by Group Policy – which of course it isn’t on Home. (See e.g., http://www.tenforums.com/general-support/58975-some-settings-managed-your-organization.html)

In theory with an activated Windows, a reinstall from the Media Creation Tool should be possible with a automatic reactivation. Lots of instructions online. You can make a backup and try it. You can always restore. It only takes time :^).

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I can’t believe I didn’t do this first! I Googled “Some settings are managed by your organization – lock screen’ and
got the solution from Microsoft: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10-start/windows-10-update-lock-screen-some-settings-are/0857e85d-dd02-42ed-8acf-a5b55b4386ff?auth=1

Which gave this solution:
Open Regedit
Went to HKLMSoftwarePoliciesMicrosoftWindowsPersonalization then on the right side I deleted the Value: NoLockScreen
then Restarted the computer.
Issue Resolved.

I rebooted and, sure enough, I was able to change the lock screen picture.

It seems many people have had this issue after the AU. As an ex-Windows Insider who beta tested Win10 from the start, I’m disappointed that this issue wasn’t caught before AU was released.

Two hours later…

Although the picture for the lock screen was changed in settings, a second reboot shows that it reverted back to the same stock picture that was there before.
Settings shows my new picture that I changed it to, but that picture doesn’t appear when the machine is rebooted.

Back to the drawing board.

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It appears that the lock screen images are stored in the folder C:WindowsWebScreen

I have files named img100.jpg to img105.jpg (with a couple .PNG files) that seem to be the same images that are shown for the Lock Screen image choices.

You could try changing the name of one of the files matching your desired lock screen image to the name of the file being used by Windows and see if this is reloaded after a reboot.

This is clearly a HACK, but it may work.

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Thanks, JC. Found the folder and copies my choice picture to it. But when I tried to rename a file, I got an error pop-up that said I need permission from ‘TrustedInstaller’. I’m lost.

45837-denied

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Sorry about the access permission problem. To fix that, I took ownership of the “Web” folder and then I gave myself permission for “Full Control” of the “Screen” folder and checked the box to allow those permissions to be inherited by all child objects (files and folders).

Clearly if you are not comfortable following what I just said, you should probably not try my original suggestion. You might cause problems with system access to these folders.

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Thanks again, JC. I did try to give myself permission to modify the file, following a set of instructions I found online, but I didn’t seem to have the knack.

I’m an obsessive-compulsive type and usually keep persisting way beyond reasonable on challenges of this sort, but I’m starting to realize that there may be a life out there that doesn’t need to have it as perfectly as I desire. Maybe I’ll (reluctantly) be able to let this one go.

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