Windows 11 does not let you personalize the operating system unless you activate your copy of Windows 11. Without activation, users cannot change the default desktop wallpaper, themes, lock screen background, or accent color from the Settings app.
The Settings app > Personalization page displays a “You need to activate Windows before you can personalize your PC” message, and all options are grayed out.
If you are running a copy of Windows 11 on your PC without activation, you might want to know how to change the lock screen background without activation.
Fortunately, although the Settings app does not let you change the desktop background and the lock screen picture, you can use the Windows Registry and the built-in Photos app to change the lock screen background picture.
NOTE: With default installation settings, Windows Spotlight is set as the lock screen background, which automatically changes the lock screen picture. We need to turn this feature off in the Registry, as the Settings app does not allow it without activation. Once we turn off the feature, we can use the Photos app to set a picture as the lock screen background.
Change the lock screen picture without activating Windows 11
This guide shows you how to change the lock screen background picture in Windows 11.
Step 1: Type Registry Editor in the Start menu or taskbar search field and then hit the Enter key.
Click the Yes button when you get the User Account Control prompt.
Step 2: On the left pane of the Windows Registry Editor, navigate to the following key:
Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\ContentDeliveryManager
Tip: You can paste the above path in the Registry Editor’s address bar and then hit the Enter key to quickly navigate to the said key.
Step 3: Now, on the right side, double-click RotatingLockScreenEnabled and change its value data from the default 1 to 0 to turn off the Windows Spotlight feature.
Step 4: Now that you have turned off the Windows Spotlight, you can set your own picture as the lock screen background. To do that, open the picture file you want to see as the lock screen background in the built-in Photos app.
NOTE: By default, all picture files open in the Photos app. So, you just need to open the picture file in the Photos app. If you set a different app as the image viewer, right-click the picture file, click Open with, and then click Photos to open the picture in the Photos app.
Step 5: Finally, right-click the picture in the Photos app, click Set as, and then click Lock screen to set it as the lock screen background picture.
Our how to save the Windows Spotlight picture in Windows 11 guide might also interest you.
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