KB5034441 and new Microsoft Windows 10 setups

In the aftermath of KB5034441, I experimented with creating a 1 GiB large Windows Recovery Partition on a new Microsoft Windows 10 VM, ensuring enough free space for KB5034441 and hopefully any later versions of the “Windows Recovery Environment.”

Systems under the control of WSUS or MECM won’t see this update.

If your existing recovery partition is the last one, you might get away by deleting that partition, then shrink your C volume sufficiently, leaving 1024 MB of free space, and recreating the recovery partition. See Microsoft’s own documentation on this phenomena.

Here’s a short summary of Microsoft’s own documentation:

reagentc /info
reagentc /disable
diskpart
select disk 0
select partition 4
delete partition override
create partition primary id=de94bba4-06d1-4d40-a16a-bfd50179d6ac
gpt attributes =0x8000000000000001
format quick fs=ntfs label="Windows RE tools"
exit
reagentc /enable
reagentc /info

I assume your disk 0 is blank. If not, then you must delete all existing partitions, as the command line version of diskpart doesn’t allow us to resize a recovery partition, and the GUI version of diskpart is severly handicapped. See below for the necessary steps for either case.

Before selecting “Custom installation” of Windows 10, hit Shift + F10, and type these commands.

diskpart
select disk 0
convert gpt
create partition primary size=1024 id=de94bba4-06d1-4d40-a16a-bfd50179d6ac
gpt attributes=0x8000000000000001
format quick fs=ntfs label="Windows RE Tools"
exit
exit

There are fourteen zeroes on line 5.

If your system already contains the usual set of partitions and your existing recovery partition is near the front, one option is to remove all existing partitions, create a large enough Windows Recovery Partition, and reinstall Windows 10. Hit Shift + F10 as before, and type these commands.

diskpart
select disk 0
select partition 4
delete partition override
select partition 3
delete partition override
select partition 2
delete partition override
select partition 1
delete partition override
create partition primary size=1024 id=de94bba4-06d1-4d40-a16a-bfd50179d6ac
gpt attributes=0x8000000000000001
format quick fs=ntfs label="Windows RE Tools"
exit
exit

Again, there are fourteen zeroes on line 12.

Users of Symantec Ghost Solution Suite or similar imaging software can create an image of their system, and when reapplying said image, resize the recovery partition to 1 GiB or more.

Microsoft’s reference for the CREATE_PARTITION_PARAMETERS structure is handy when deciphering the values for GUIDs and GPT attributes.