When I sat down at my laptop on Wednesday, I had no idea what “fairy chimneys” were or why people would build caves into the sides of mountains to hide temples and homes. Credit Windows with that and one of its better, largely underutilized features: Windows Spotlight.
Windows Spotlight rotates your desktop background on a regular basis, providing a backdrop of nature photography culled from Microsoft Bing’s licensed archives. You can download tons of free wallpaper themes directly from Microsoft. But those themes just cycle through a small collection of backgrounds.
Spotlight opens up your options even more. What I love about it is two things. First, Spotlight doesn’t restrict itself to certain images. I’ve seen duplicate images, but Microsoft lately has done a good job of cycling through a wider range of backgrounds. You’ll see a variety of nature photography, which is right up my alley. The famous “Bliss” image from Windows XP was just a bucolic image of California’s Wine Country. Spotlight provides access to hundreds if not thousands more.
But the other thing I really enjoy about Spotlight is the opportunity to learn. I’m not always inclined to wonder what the heck I’m looking at, as I did for the photo of Turkey’s Cappadocia that I captured from Windows Spotlight on my Windows PC. But Spotlight places a small “Learn about this picture” shortcut on your desktop. Naturally, clicking it opens a Bing page that provides more information about the subject of the photo. I’ve not only started by day with an interesting photo, but I’ve learned something too!
How to turn on Windows Spotlight
Windows Spotlight can be found inside the Windows Settings menu. Click Personalization > Background and you should see a drop-down menu with options that range from a specific picture to a color to a slideshow. Windows spotlight hides at the bottom. (Alternatively, you can download the Bing Wallpaper app directly from Microsoft, especially for older PCs). With Windows 11, it’s built right in.
Mark Hachman / IDG
Mark Hachman / IDG
Mark Hachman / IDG
The only thing I don’t like about Windows Spotlight is that there’s no obvious way to set the number of times that the wallpaper refreshes with new images. If you leave a portion of your desktop visible, the changes might be distracting.
It would be nice if we could have some controls to change the images hourly, say, as a sort of clock or with some controls to suggest images of beaches during the dark winter months. Microsoft surely has the ability to tag or understand and provide suggested content; it just hasn’t. I really don’t want Microsoft to replace its natural imagery with AI-generated art, but others might disagree.
Most of the time my windows are maximized and whatever photo Bing and Windows provides are hidden behind Outlook, the Web, and various other applications. But there’s enough opportunity to get a glimpse of something cool when I close a window or application. When I do, Windows Spotlight rarely fails to brighten my day.
Author: Mark Hachman, Senior Editor, PCWorld
Mark has written for PCWorld for the last decade, with 30 years of experience covering technology. He has authored over 3,500 articles for PCWorld alone, covering PC microprocessors, peripherals, and Microsoft Windows, among other topics. Mark has written for publications including PC Magazine, Byte, eWEEK, Popular Science and Electronic Buyers' News, where he shared a Jesse H. Neal Award for breaking news. He recently handed over a collection of several dozen Thunderbolt docks and USB-C hubs because his office simply has no more room.