Windows 10: Windows Spotlight images I copied and saved were deleted by themselves

Windows version: version 1909 (OS build 18363.1139)
On a Surface Pro 4

So while looking at Window's Spotlight images on my lock screen I was like hey, these look great. So I navigated to the folder at \AppData\Local\Packages\Microsoft.Windows.ContentDeliveryManager_cw5n1h2txyewy\LocalState\Assets, copied the latest few images to my desktop, and added a .png extension to all of them.

Now that I had my images, I created two folders. One called Windows Spotlight, and the other called Favorites, both on my desktop. I copied any images that I liked from the desktop to the Favorites folder, and dragged the images into Windows Spotlight folder.

Today, when I logged on, I saw an image I liked, so I once again navigated to the Assets folder. But in there, instead of a large list of files and images from past dates, I had 6 images from today and nothing else (except some small icons or something). All the spotlight files from yesterday to 2 years ago were deleted.

This wasn't a big problem, maybe Windows deletes them to clear up space once in a while (but why 2 years at once). The bigger problem was that all images from my Windows Spotlight folder on the desktop were gone (the folder was still there but empty). However, the images I saved to my Favorites folder were still there. Could it be that Windows decided to clear them to free up space, and then also cleared all copies of the files? The ones in Favorites are copies of the copies.

Anything that I can think of that could be related:
1. I didn't rename the files, so they're still random letters/numbers. Maybe Windows looks for these instead of paths? But so were my Favorites which it didn't delete.
2. Failed update KB4577671 from KB4577670 via error 0x80070013. Not sure how this would affect it but it updated correctly after I lost my images.
3. I don't have a windows.old folder, and I don't see any other users except for me. All my apps and things work fine and every personal file that should be in my userfolder is there except for Windows Spotlight folder in Desktop.
4. I don't recall if my free storage space increased between the last time I checked Assets and now, but I'm currently operating on 27.7GB free out of 117GB

Not sure how this happened. Recuva didn't find anything at all except for several partially overwritten files in a shadow copy. At this point, I'm sure all my internet browsing and stuff have put my chances of recovery at 0. But I would still like to know why this happened and if I can prevent it from happening next time. I've put the rest of my saved images into Pictures instead of Desktop, maybe that will help.

:)

 

Windows spotlight images (Lock screen)

This is really dumb, but if you are like me and use spotlight for your windows lock screen images, I actually tend to like some of them alot. They rotate it seems every few days but it doesn't seem to delete them as often as it gets new ones.

With that said I couldnt find anything similar online so I made a script that would pull the files from the folder buried in app data that keeps the files. They dont have an extension normally so I append the JPG extension too them.

I create a folder on your desktop called spotlight and copy the files too it then run the conversion.

I didn't spend forever on this so be nice but otherwise;

Enjoy

Code for the crazies:
Spoiler Code: @Echo off title Spotlight Image Converter cls :checkPrivileges :: Check for Admin by accessing protected stuff. This calls net(#).exe and can stall if we don't kill it later. NET FILE 1>NUL 2>NUL if '%errorlevel%' == '0' ( goto menu) else ( goto getPrivileges ) :getPrivileges :: Write vbs in temp to call batch as admin. if '%1'=='ELEV' (shift & goto menu) for /f "delims=: tokens=*" %%A in ('findstr /b ::- "%~f0"') do @Echo(%%A setlocal DisableDelayedExpansion set "batchPath=%~0" setlocal EnableDelayedExpansion Echo Set UAC = CreateObject^("Shell.Application"^) > "%temp%\OEgetPrivileges.vbs" Echo UAC.ShellExecute "!batchPath!", "ELEV", "", "runas", 1 >> "%temp%\OEgetPrivileges.vbs" "%temp%\OEgetPrivileges.vbs" exit /B :menu Echo Windows 10 Lock screen image converter Echo. Echo Brought to you by Solaris17 of TPU Echo. Echo This will make a folder on your desktop called "Spotlight" Echo. Echo It will copy the lockscreen images to the folder then convert them to JPEG format. Echo. Echo Let me know when you are ready. Echo. Pause goto copy :copy @Echo off CLS Echo. Echo Converting and copy in progress... Echo. mkdir %userprofile%\Desktop\Spotlight > nul 2>&1 timeout 5 >nul robocopy %userprofile%\appdata\local\packages\Microsoft.Windows.ContentDeliveryManager_cw5n1h2txyewy\LocalState\Assets\ %userprofile%\Desktop\Spotlight /copyall /E > nul 2>&1 ren %userprofile%\Desktop\Spotlight\* *.jpg > nul 2>&1 Echo Done!! Echo. pause[/quote]

 

Windows spotlight images (Lock screen)

I updated this to fix an issue where images already in the folder would be swapped back to no extension making them unreadable again.

CODE:
Spoiler Code: @Echo off title Spotlight Image Converter v2 cls :checkPrivileges :: Check for Admin by accessing protected stuff. This calls net(#).exe and can stall if we don't kill it later. NET FILE 1>NUL 2>NUL if '%errorlevel%' == '0' ( goto menu) else ( goto getPrivileges ) :getPrivileges :: Write vbs in temp to call batch as admin. if '%1'=='ELEV' (shift & goto menu) for /f "delims=: tokens=*" %%A in ('findstr /b ::- "%~f0"') do @Echo(%%A setlocal DisableDelayedExpansion set "batchPath=%~0" setlocal EnableDelayedExpansion Echo Set UAC = CreateObject^("Shell.Application"^) > "%temp%\OEgetPrivileges.vbs" Echo UAC.ShellExecute "!batchPath!", "ELEV", "", "runas", 1 >> "%temp%\OEgetPrivileges.vbs" "%temp%\OEgetPrivileges.vbs" exit /B :menu Echo Windows 10 Lock screen image converter Echo. Echo Brought to you by Solaris17 of TPU Echo. Echo This will make a folder on your desktop called "Spotlight" Echo. Echo It will copy the lockscreen images to the folder then convert them to JPEG format. Echo. Echo Let me know when you are ready. Echo. Pause goto copy :copy @Echo off CLS Echo. Echo Converting and copy in progress... Echo. mkdir "%userprofile%\Desktop\Spotlight" > nul 2>&1 mkdir "%userprofile%\Desktop\Spotlight\Converted" > nul 2>&1 timeout 5 >nul robocopy %userprofile%\appdata\local\packages\Microsoft.Windows.ContentDeliveryManager_cw5n1h2txyewy\LocalState\Assets\ "%userprofile%\Desktop\Spotlight" /copyall /E > nul 2>&1 ren %userprofile%\Desktop\Spotlight\* *.jpg > nul 2>&1 move "%userprofile%\Desktop\Spotlight\*.jpg" "%userprofile%\Desktop\Spotlight\Converted" > nul 2>&1 Echo Done!! Echo. pause[/quote]

 

Saving Windows Spotlight images

I attempted to save some Windows Spotlight images on my computer. I was able to access the folder and copy the files to a new folder but then I ran into an issue. Instead of "Open a command window here" , I was give the option," Open a Powershell window
here". Foolishly thinking it would work anyway, I opened the Powershell and ran the command listed in the directions. Instead of getting jpeg images from the files i'd copied, I got this error message:



I looked on the forum post and I'm not the only one who had this problem. No answer was given as to how to fix the problem so I am creating this post. Is it possible to use Powershell to "unscramble" the Spotlight files or does it have to be run in a command
window? Also if there is a way to access the command window instead of Powershell, please let me know.