Forum Discussion
Windows 11 Spotlight stopped working on one user profile – works on another profile
Rebuilding or resetting the cache (Assets folder) and registry entries is the supported way to repair this without recreating the entire profile.
- OkikiSep 08, 2026Copper Contributor
I have done some additional testing and I believe the issue is occurring after ContentDeliveryManager is initialized. I deleted the Microsoft.Windows.ContentDeliveryManager_cw5n1h2txyewy folder and restarted Windows. Windows automatically recreated the folder, confirming that Windows 11 recognizes and restores the ContentDeliveryManager component correctly. However, the Assets folder remains empty because no Spotlight image is actually downloaded. Since the ContentDeliveryManager component is being recreated successfully, but no creative is being delivered to the Assets folder, could you please advise what controls the actual Spotlight content delivery/subscription for the affected user profile? This is particularly interesting because Spotlight works normally under another profile on the same Windows installation.
- OkikiSep 07, 2026Copper Contributor
I have already tried this.
I reset the ContentDeliveryManager package, re-registered it, and checked/reset the relevant Spotlight registry entries. The Assets folder remained empty and Spotlight still did not work on the original profile.
However, Spotlight works normally on a new profile on the same laptop and Windows installation. So the issue appears to be specific to the original user profile.
Is there a supported way to rebuild the Spotlight cache/state within the existing profile without recreating the profile?
Would appreciate any code tip to use in PowerShell to solve this