One of the features of the latest Windows 10 April 2018 update that I’ve been most looking forward to is Timeline.
Unfortunately, Timeline hasn’t worked for me since the upgrade. But today I fixed it.
What is Timeline?
Timeline lets you see a list of all the documents and applications (that support Timeline) going back about a month. The idea is that this feature should make it easier to find documents you’ve been working on.
The problem I had was that after the upgrade (which only took about 30 minutes) it didn’t work. All I saw was a list of the virtual desktops I had (which is usually two), the currently open applications, and then a message saying that I needed to use my PC more before timeline would start showing me results.
How I fixed it
This is the combination of things that I did to fix it.
Note that my user account is a Microsoft account, not a local PC account.
Settings > Activity history
The first thing was to make sure Windows was collecting my activities.
- Open Settings
- Go to Activity history
- Make sure Let Windows collect my activities from this PC is checked.
- Make sure Let Windows synchronise my activities from this PC to the cloud is checked.
- Make sure the Microsoft accounts you want synchronised are set to On.
Registry settings
I next checked that the following Windows Registry settings were present in the following registry location:
Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\System
EnableActivityFeedPublishUserActivitiesUploadUserActivities
Make sure these are all DWORD 32-bit Value entries set to 1.
To start RegEdit press Win + R and type regedit and click OK.
Restart the PC
Some people have recommended that at this point you should restart your PC to let these settings take effect. Note, not just restart but switch off, wait a few seconds and then switch it back on.
That didn’t work for me.
Create a local user account
It wasn’t until I did the following that Windows suddenly started the Timeline feature. I’m not sure why but this, in combination with the steps above, got it started.
- Open Settings.
- Go to Accounts.
- Select Family & other people from the options on the left.
- Under Other people click Add someone else to this PC.
- In the pop-up window select I don’t have this person’s sign-in information.
- Click on the link Add a user without a Microsoft account.
- Enter a new username and password. Then select three security questions and answers. Finally click Next.
- Once your account has been set up. Switch off the PC.
- Switch the PC back on and now log in with your new local username.
- Wait for Windows to set up your account for first use, then check the Timeline (Win + Tab). It should be working. Browse a few pages in Microsoft Edge just to make sure.
- Log off and now log on with your standard Microsoft account.
- Once the account has loaded, Timeline should now be working.
I offer this in the hope that it may help someone in a similar situation to mine. Good luck!