Remove "fun" facts from Spotlight lock screen in Windows 10 Home (1803)
Solution 1:
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.
Solution 2:
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:
Local Computer Policy | Computer Configuration | Windows Settings | Security Settings | Local Policies | Security Options | Interactive Login: Do not require CTRL+ALT+DEL
Set its value to Disabled. Then reboot.
Solution 3:
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.