You lock your PC and the screen fills with tips, facts and clickable promotions - and clicking one opens a Bing search. None of that is a virus. It is Windows Spotlight doing its designed job. Here is how to switch every piece of it off, by hand in Settings or with the one click script from the video - and an honest note on the few things that stay on the screen no matter what.
In the video, a locked office laptop is covered in Spotlight items - counted one by one on screen - and every click on them lands on a Bing search page. On a machine you hand to a senior colleague or a client, that looks unprofessional; at home it is simply noise. The fix used in the video is the creator's own one click registry script, linked with the video. The script is fast, but every change behind it is an ordinary Windows setting, so this guide walks the manual route first: Settings only, nothing installed, about two minutes. The script is covered at the end, honestly - what it can and cannot do for you.
The before picture most Windows 11 users lock to. Everything except the clock can be switched off - here is the order that works.
Everything in this guide lives on one Settings page. Open Settings, go to Personalization, then Lock screen. A faster route: press Windows + R, type ms-settings:lockscreen and press Enter. You should see a preview of your current lock screen at the top and a Background dropdown below it. Stay on this page for the next three steps.
This is the step that removes the ads, because the clickable fact and link boxes belong to the Spotlight feed. In the Background dropdown, change Windows spotlight to Picture and pick an image with Browse photos - or choose Slideshow and point it at a folder of your own photos. Spotlight has no separate off switch for its boxes; they are part of what Spotlight is. Changing the background is what ends them. If the daily surprise photos are the part you love, there is a separate page in this guide weighing that trade honestly.
With Picture selected, a toggle appears: Get fun facts, tips, tricks and more on your lock screen. Switch it Off. This toggle is why some guides seem to contradict each other - while Spotlight is the background, the toggle is not shown at all, because with Spotlight the facts are not optional. With your own picture or slideshow, the toggle is the whole job: Off means no tip boxes over your photo. If your slideshow still shows facts afterwards, check this same toggle once more; on some builds it sits with the slideshow options.
Under the background choices you will find two app pickers: one app for detailed status (a full line of text, like a weather forecast) and a row of quick status apps (small icons with counts, like unread mail). These are not ads - they are information Windows puts there because it was asked to. If you want the cleanest possible screen, set both pickers to None. If the weather line is genuinely useful to you, keep it and remove only what you do not use. A separate page in this guide covers these slots in full.
On the same page, lower down, is the toggle Show lock screen background picture on the sign-in screen. Turn it On so the calm picture you just chose is also what appears behind the password box, instead of a different default image. This is a consistency setting, not an ad setting - the sign-in screen itself does not show fun facts or links.
Press Windows + L and look. You should see your picture, the time and date, and nothing clickable selling anything. Two honest exceptions: if the PC belongs to your office and is centrally managed, an administrator's policy can reapply the defaults - that is the policy working, not your settings failing. And if you sign in with a Microsoft account on several PCs, settings sync can carry an old choice from another machine; check the same page on your other PCs once.
The video's script does this same job through registry automation: one click instead of five screens of Settings, which is a real kindness when you are preparing a laptop for someone else. What it is not is magic - it flips the same family of switches this page just walked through, for the lock screen surface. It does not block ads inside your browser or apps, and Windows feature updates can reset these settings afterwards, script or no script. If you use it, take the standing safety step first: open the script in Notepad and read it. Its own page in this guide shows how, in about a minute.
Watch the video to see the script clean a lock screen in one click - and to see the moment that inspired it: a locked office laptop quietly advertising Bing to anyone who walks past.
▶️ Watch Full VideoNo. Everything the script automates for this surface can be done in Settings in about two minutes - change the background from Windows spotlight to Picture, switch off Get fun facts tips tricks and more, and set the status apps to None if you want a fully quiet screen. The script is a shortcut for doing it repeatedly or on someone else's laptop, not a different fix.
No. Spotlight is a built-in Windows feature that downloads a daily photo plus fact and link boxes from Microsoft. It looks like advertising because clicking a box opens a Bing search, but it is part of the operating system, and removing it is a settings change, not a cleanup.
No, and any guide promising that from a lock screen fix is overselling. This page covers the Windows lock screen only. Suggestions in the Start menu, tips in the Settings app and pop-ups after updates are separate switches in separate places - the cousin surfaces page in this guide maps each one.