On 1/13/2024 2:45 PM, ...w¡ñ§±¤ñ wrote:
> Paul wrote on 1/12/24 7:14 PM:
>>
>> This has certainly turned into a hobby :-)
>>
>>     [Picture]
>>
>>      https://i.postimg.cc/HnkmKP8X/4441-installed-OK-dates-filesize.gif
>>
>>    Paul
>>
> And will be as long as WinRE continues to grow(apparently like yours has, since it would be unlikely to have ever been initially created as a 759 MB partition)
>
> Lol...also unlikely for anyone's WinRE partition to be the same size as another's WinRE partition.
>
> You may recall, I've previously been a proponent of creating the WinRe partition for clean installs at 1 GB.
>  - with my Win11 23H2(updated with Jan. 2024 updates) WinRE partition at 827 MB its winre.wim at 811 MB...2 GB could easily become my new recommendation for the WinRE partition.

I have at least one install here that uses 1GB WinRE partitions,
so I have done that. And likely after your feedback. It was a drive
with two copies of Windows, and a 1GB WinRE for each.

I just don't remember which disk drive has that feature right now.
My disks are numbered, and the last hard drive purchased is #34,
so it's easy to lose track :-) Most of my drives are small ones
for scratch purposes.

Paul

Paul wrote on 1/14/24 1:15 AM:
> On 1/13/2024 2:45 PM, ...w¡ñ§±¤ñ wrote:
>> Paul wrote on 1/12/24 7:14 PM:
>>>
>>> This has certainly turned into a hobby :-)
>>>
>>>     [Picture]
>>>
>>>      https://i.postimg.cc/HnkmKP8X/4441-installed-OK-dates-filesize.gif
>>>
>>>    Paul
>>>
>> And will be as long as WinRE continues to grow(apparently like yours has, since it would be unlikely to have ever been initially created as a 759 MB partition)
>>
>> Lol...also unlikely for anyone's WinRE partition to be the same size as another's WinRE partition.
>>
>> You may recall, I've previously been a proponent of creating the WinRe partition for clean installs at 1 GB.
>>  - with my Win11 23H2(updated with Jan. 2024 updates) WinRE partition at 827 MB its winre.wim at 811 MB...2 GB could easily become my new recommendation for the WinRE partition.
>
> I have at least one install here that uses 1GB WinRE partitions,
> so I have done that. And likely after your feedback. It was a drive
> with two copies of Windows, and a 1GB WinRE for each.
>
> I just don't remember which disk drive has that feature right now.
> My disks are numbered, and the last hard drive purchased is #34,
> so it's easy to lose track :-) Most of my drives are small ones
> for scratch purposes.
>
> Paul
>
>

I chose that 1GB WinRE partition size at the time, when MSFT finally
fixed the Windows MCT media installer with the release of version 2004.
Prior to 2004.
- I may be remembering incorrectly, but iirc, prior 2004 MCT created
media(USB or ISO) with install.esd[unlike the Visual Studio(fka MSDN,
TechNet) ISO's that used install.wim] created the WinRE partition at the
beginning of the disk. The install.wim ISO's placed it after the Windows
Partition consistent the UEFI/GPT partitioning guidelines.

By choosing 1GB, it alleviated my dislike of carving out space from the
Windows(C:) partition - i.e. If I sized my Windows paritition to my
prefence, I wanted 'it' to remain unchanged and not chopped off in pieces
in the future.
- Not enough to call it foresight at that time, but fortuitous enough
when MSFT started included WinRE in cumulative updates(which appeared to
me as an indication that updates would be more code as well as WinRE size
increases).

Also not convinced that this 'increase by 250 MB' fix was exact
science/math based on my prior MVP experience listening to MSFT during
those on-site NDA Redmond sessions.
My thoughts - they finally realized(common sense or reality and
real-world feedback)
1. The original recommendation per GPT guidelines(300-700 MB) no longer
was sufficient(6 months after including WinRE in cumulative updates
2. WinRE partition had already grown beyond the common 500 MB initial
size to over 700 MB
3. Past history of creating a 300 or 500 GB initial WinRE partition with
an OEM image or clean install followed by end-user later enabling
BitLocker(on Pro and Enterprise)resulted in Windows disregarding the
original WinRE partition and creating a new(second one) 700-750 MB
partition immediately after the Windows partition(carving out space from
the C: drive) - it didn't matter if the original WinRE partition was the
first, begining of disk(partition 1) or after Windows(partition 4). The
new one became partition 4, enabled, and Active(with the original
becoming useless, unused partition and useless space at the beginning or
end of the disk.

Thus, my perception knowing the above(and knowing a bit about the
internal workings of push/shove among product vs. marketing
politics...the 250 MB increase was a number chosen halfway between the
common 500 MB and halfway up to the 1 GB size(that should have been in
place for some time)to prevent any insufficient size failures with and
without BitLocker enabling.

With my Win11 Pro 23H2 WinRE at 829 MB, it is(at least in my reasoning),
belief) that more than 1 GB will be needed in the future before Win11 EOL
=> If clean installing Windows 11, then choose 2 GB(2048) or play
roulette with some level of comfort and choose 1536 MB(1.5 MB) and once
again alleviate under-the-hood shrinking of the o/s drive.

--
....w¡ñ§±¤ñ

....w¡ñ§±¤ñ wrote on 1/14/24 2:33 AM:

p.s.
Almost forgot to mention..
If you've been exploring the WinRE partition folder structure to look at
winre.wim, you might have also noted that partition has a System Volume
Information folder/subfolders. While you may or may not have any files or
content in those folders/subfolders...

....If using Win10 or Win11 and using System Restore to revisit System
Restore in Windows, then it might be of benefit(after successfully
installing the Jan 2024 update)to:
a. Verify SR is still enabled
b. Delete all SR restore points
d. Enable SR and create a new SR restore point
e. Restart the device
f. Re-image the disk(System, MSR, Windows, and WinRE partitions)

--
....w¡ñ§±¤ñ

On 1/13/2024 6:25 PM, sticks wrote:
> On 1/13/2024 4:17 PM, Big Al wrote:
>
>> I deleted all of them then went back and ran those manual commands and I was able now to expand the partition by that 250M.
>> The rest of the commands succeeded and then I ran Windows Update and it succeeded also.
>>
>> So I'm happy that my system has a larger Recovery now.  I probably should have shoved it 500M, but... It's at 881M now.
>
> I have to admit, I'm thoroughly confused now.
> I have a bunch of messages in this thread saved, but is there any chance you could post
> the message ID of the one that had the instructions you followed to get yours working? 
> It would be much appreciated!

We have not reduced the answer to this question to a "recipe".

You could have Bitlocker encryption on the disk drive. While Bitlocker
is not "supported" on Home, and is supported on Pro, the manage-bde
utility may be present anyway, to give some information. Some people to
this day, are blissfully unaware their disk is encrypted. Surprise!

manage-bde -status

Early in the thread, we were treated to the support.microsoft.com article.
I tried to provide a picture of my disk drive, and show
the commands I would use to fix my specific case. I generally
do not use crypto, if I can possibly avoid it. (Only my VMWare
virtual machine with the Win11 in it, is encrypted, as VMWare
did not offer any options in the matter. Users even told VMWare how
to do this. Crickets.)

A typical user might have a UEFI installation on a modern computer, with
a GPT partitioned disk. The worked example assumes these characteristics.
I had to "avoid" using my legacy MBR Win10 installation, as it would mislead
people a bit. More people could be here on OEM setups, in which case
the possible disk layouts, crypto situations, just explodes. Thus,
this example is a very narrow and "best-guess" at what you might find.
OEM systems will be GPT. A lot of users in the group, might well have
selected GPT for the flexibility it offers.

A couple posters have already recommended waiting until Microsoft fixes this.
If you're a multi-booter with *lots* of experience, I think you can handle this,
but then, you'd be finished by now.

The standard advice (which I use religiously when standing on a shaky platform),
is to do a full disk backup before attempting anything like this.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/kb5028997-instructions-to-manually-resize-your-partition-to-install-the-winre-update-400faa27-9343-461c-ada9-24c8229763bf

# Administrator Command Prompt, or Admin Powershell then type "cmd.exe" as a command

reagentc /info # shows recovery agent is enabled, and is using Partition 4
# The article should show what that looks like. A picture would help.
# If your reagentc is blank or messed up, *stop now*. See example further down,
# for what one looks like.

[Picture] This picture shows my disk setup, and makes a reference to the invisible non-partition known as MSR (reserved/junk area)
Partition 2 can be seen from Linux gparted /dev/sda , if you really want to see the disk layout.
The disktype.exe utility also shows it, but it's only available via a Cygwin installation.
I do not really want to lard up this answer with a lot more utility photos. I guess even List Partition
shows it, come to think of it.

https://i.postimg.cc/sgXwB389/diskpart-disk-summary.gif

reagentc /disable # Disable recovery environment agent before making changes

diskpart.exe # Now, we're doing shrink of C: and regeneration (empty) Recovery partition 4
list disk
select disk 0
list partition
select partition 3 # will shrink C: now. This could fail, if the $USN journal is right at the end of C: .
shrink desired=250 minimum=250 # runtime 1 second (*normally* the end of the disk doesn't have a blocker up there)
select partition 4
delete partition override # "delete partition" is the command we seek to cowboy at this point
# This solves the inability to change the origin of a partition in DiskMgmt. Deleting Partition 4

create partition primary id=de94bba4-06d1-4d40-a16a-bfd50179d6ac # The ID is a partition type, it's our Recovery partition.
gpt attributes =0x8000000000000001 # <=== Protected status of partition. Partitions
# can be "marked" as "being special" [Attribute]
# Yes, there are fourteen zeros in that constant.

format quick fs=ntfs label="Windows RE tools" # Partition 4 is NTFS, and now it has no content. Empty file system.
# Partition is likely hidden by its ID value. The Windows Update will fill it up.
exit

reagentc /enable # Even though Partition 4 is empty, we can still pretend all is well.
reagentc /info # A sample output is provided, after this line.

Windows Recovery Environment (Windows RE) and system reset configuration
Information:

Windows RE status: Enabled
Windows RE location: \\?\GLOBALROOT\device\harddisk0\partition4\Recovery\WindowsRE <=== partition pointer remains as before
Boot Configuration Data (BCD) identifier: 964e2ef1-3a60-11ed-81d3-5cf3707d2fda <=== likely inside ESP Partition 1
Recovery image location:
Recovery image index: 0
Custom image location:
Custom image index: 0

Anyway, that was enough operations for me to fix mine. YMMV, OK?

.... Time passes. Somehow, we encourage '4441 to install. We think
a new WinRE.wim was installed. How to prove it ?

To prove '4441 has installed my new WinRE, I used TestDisk version 7.
Using this is actually too complicated to explain. Which speaks well of the interface.
Not a problem. We have an alternative.

[Picture]

https://i.postimg.cc/HnkmKP8X/4441-installed-OK-dates-filesize.gif

The alternative, is more Diskpart. Administrator window of some sort,
or otherwise, diskpart will elevate itself.

diskpart.exe
list disk
select disk 0
list partition
select partition 4 # We're pointed to the 0x27 style hidden Recovery partition now.
assign letter=K # Temporarily assigning a drive letter, to make partition visibie.
# Permissions can *still* prevent us from doing stuff. File Manager
# pointing to K: , is not very helpful right now.

exit

In the same administrator window, to prove '4441 is present, now we have
access to the partition via the letter K. (The letter K will be removed
on a reboot. If you want it per-session, you have to do the procedure
per-session.) You should see three files with Jan 2024 datestamps or so.
The slash a h is asking to display all files with a Hidden attribute set.

dir /ah K:\Recovery\WindowsRE

So that's about it... for me.

Paul

On 1/13/24 06:25 PM, sticks wrote:
> On 1/13/2024 4:17 PM, Big Al wrote:
>
>> I deleted all of them then went back and ran those manual commands and
>> I was able now to expand the partition by that 250M.
>> The rest of the commands succeeded and then I ran Windows Update and
>> it succeeded also.
>>
>> So I'm happy that my system has a larger Recovery now.  I probably
>> should have shoved it 500M, but... It's at 881M now.
>
> I have to admit, I'm thoroughly confused now.
> I have a bunch of messages in this thread saved, but is there any chance
> you could post the message ID of the one that had the instructions you
> followed to get yours working?  It would be much appreciated!
>
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/kb5028997-instructions-to-manually-resize-your-partition-to-install-the-winre-update-400faa27-9343-461c-ada9-24c8229763bf
--
Linux Mint 21.2 Cinnamon
Al

On 1/14/24 04:52 AM, ...w¡ñ§±¤ñ wrote:
> ...If using Win10 or Win11 and using System Restore to revisit System
> Restore in Windows, then it might be of benefit(after successfully
> installing the Jan 2024 update)to:
> a. Verify SR is still enabled
> b. Delete all SR restore points
> d. Enable SR and create a new SR restore point
> e. Restart the device
> f. Re-image the disk(System, MSR, Windows, and WinRE partitions)
To resize my partition, I did step 'b' first to get space.
SR was at the end of the drive.
Then after, I performed all the others.
--
Linux Mint 21.2 Cinnamon
Al

On 1/14/2024 7:25 AM, Big Al wrote:
> On 1/13/24 06:25 PM, sticks wrote:
>> On 1/13/2024 4:17 PM, Big Al wrote:
>>
>>> I deleted all of them then went back and ran those manual commands
>>> and I was able now to expand the partition by that 250M.
>>> The rest of the commands succeeded and then I ran Windows Update and
>>> it succeeded also.
>>>
>>> So I'm happy that my system has a larger Recovery now.  I probably
>>> should have shoved it 500M, but... It's at 881M now.
>>
>> I have to admit, I'm thoroughly confused now.
>> I have a bunch of messages in this thread saved, but is there any
>> chance you could post the message ID of the one that had the
>> instructions you followed to get yours working?  It would be much
>> appreciated!
>>
> https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/kb5028997-instructions-to-manually-resize-your-partition-to-install-the-winre-update-400faa27-9343-461c-ada9-24c8229763bf

Thanks AL!

--
Stand With Israel!
NOTE: If you use Google Groups I don't see you,
unless you're whitelisted and that's doubtful.

On 1/14/2024 4:45 AM, Paul wrote:
> On 1/13/2024 6:25 PM, sticks wrote:
>> On 1/13/2024 4:17 PM, Big Al wrote:
>>
>>> I deleted all of them then went back and ran those manual commands and I was able now to expand the partition by that 250M.
>>> The rest of the commands succeeded and then I ran Windows Update and it succeeded also.
>>>
>>> So I'm happy that my system has a larger Recovery now.  I probably should have shoved it 500M, but... It's at 881M now.
>>
>> I have to admit, I'm thoroughly confused now.
>> I have a bunch of messages in this thread saved, but is there any chance you could post
>> the message ID of the one that had the instructions you followed to get yours working?
>> It would be much appreciated!
>
> We have not reduced the answer to this question to a "recipe".
>
> You could have Bitlocker encryption on the disk drive. While Bitlocker
> is not "supported" on Home, and is supported on Pro, the manage-bde
> utility may be present anyway, to give some information. Some people to
> this day, are blissfully unaware their disk is encrypted. Surprise!
>
> manage-bde -status
>
> Early in the thread, we were treated to the support.microsoft.com article.
> I tried to provide a picture of my disk drive, and show
> the commands I would use to fix my specific case. I generally
> do not use crypto, if I can possibly avoid it. (Only my VMWare
> virtual machine with the Win11 in it, is encrypted, as VMWare
> did not offer any options in the matter. Users even told VMWare how
> to do this. Crickets.)
>
> A typical user might have a UEFI installation on a modern computer, with
> a GPT partitioned disk. The worked example assumes these characteristics.
> I had to "avoid" using my legacy MBR Win10 installation, as it would mislead
> people a bit. More people could be here on OEM setups, in which case
> the possible disk layouts, crypto situations, just explodes. Thus,
> this example is a very narrow and "best-guess" at what you might find.
> OEM systems will be GPT. A lot of users in the group, might well have
> selected GPT for the flexibility it offers.
>
> A couple posters have already recommended waiting until Microsoft fixes this.
> If you're a multi-booter with *lots* of experience, I think you can handle this,
> but then, you'd be finished by now.
>
> The standard advice (which I use religiously when standing on a shaky platform),
> is to do a full disk backup before attempting anything like this.
>
> https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/kb5028997-instructions-to-manually-resize-your-partition-to-install-the-winre-update-400faa27-9343-461c-ada9-24c8229763bf
>
> # Administrator Command Prompt, or Admin Powershell then type "cmd.exe" as a command
>
> reagentc /info # shows recovery agent is enabled, and is using Partition 4
> # The article should show what that looks like. A picture would help.
> # If your reagentc is blank or messed up, *stop now*. See example further down,
> # for what one looks like.
>
> [Picture] This picture shows my disk setup, and makes a reference to the invisible non-partition known as MSR (reserved/junk area)
> Partition 2 can be seen from Linux gparted /dev/sda , if you really want to see the disk layout.
> The disktype.exe utility also shows it, but it's only available via a Cygwin installation.
> I do not really want to lard up this answer with a lot more utility photos. I guess even List Partition
> shows it, come to think of it.
>
> https://i.postimg.cc/sgXwB389/diskpart-disk-summary.gif
>
> reagentc /disable # Disable recovery environment agent before making changes
>
> diskpart.exe # Now, we're doing shrink of C: and regeneration (empty) Recovery partition 4
> list disk
> select disk 0
> list partition
> select partition 3 # will shrink C: now. This could fail, if the $USN journal is right at the end of C: .
> shrink desired=250 minimum=250 # runtime 1 second (*normally* the end of the disk doesn't have a blocker up there)
> select partition 4
> delete partition override # "delete partition" is the command we seek to cowboy at this point
> # This solves the inability to change the origin of a partition in DiskMgmt. Deleting Partition 4
>
> create partition primary id=de94bba4-06d1-4d40-a16a-bfd50179d6ac # The ID is a partition type, it's our Recovery partition.
> gpt attributes =0x8000000000000001 # <=== Protected status of partition. Partitions
> # can be "marked" as "being special" [Attribute]
> # Yes, there are fourteen zeros in that constant.
>
> format quick fs=ntfs label="Windows RE tools" # Partition 4 is NTFS, and now it has no content. Empty file system.
> # Partition is likely hidden by its ID value. The Windows Update will fill it up.
> exit
>
> reagentc /enable # Even though Partition 4 is empty, we can still pretend all is well.
> reagentc /info # A sample output is provided, after this line.
>
> Windows Recovery Environment (Windows RE) and system reset configuration
> Information:
>
> Windows RE status: Enabled
> Windows RE location: \\?\GLOBALROOT\device\harddisk0\partition4\Recovery\WindowsRE <=== partition pointer remains as before
> Boot Configuration Data (BCD) identifier: 964e2ef1-3a60-11ed-81d3-5cf3707d2fda <=== likely inside ESP Partition 1
> Recovery image location:
> Recovery image index: 0
> Custom image location:
> Custom image index: 0
>
> Anyway, that was enough operations for me to fix mine. YMMV, OK?
>
> ... Time passes. Somehow, we encourage '4441 to install. We think
> a new WinRE.wim was installed. How to prove it ?
>
> To prove '4441 has installed my new WinRE, I used TestDisk version 7.
> Using this is actually too complicated to explain. Which speaks well of the interface.
> Not a problem. We have an alternative.
>
> [Picture]
>
> https://i.postimg.cc/HnkmKP8X/4441-installed-OK-dates-filesize.gif
>
> The alternative, is more Diskpart. Administrator window of some sort,
> or otherwise, diskpart will elevate itself.
>
> diskpart.exe
> list disk
> select disk 0
> list partition
> select partition 4 # We're pointed to the 0x27 style hidden Recovery partition now.
> assign letter=K # Temporarily assigning a drive letter, to make partition visibie.
> # Permissions can *still* prevent us from doing stuff. File Manager
> # pointing to K: , is not very helpful right now.
>
> exit
>
> In the same administrator window, to prove '4441 is present, now we have
> access to the partition via the letter K. (The letter K will be removed
> on a reboot. If you want it per-session, you have to do the procedure
> per-session.) You should see three files with Jan 2024 datestamps or so.
> The slash a h is asking to display all files with a Hidden attribute set.
>
> dir /ah K:\Recovery\WindowsRE
>
> So that's about it... for me.
>
> Paul

Thanks Paul. Today, I'll check Al's link and use this to try and
resolve this problem. I'll report back if I have success.

--
Stand With Israel!
NOTE: If you use Google Groups I don't see you,
unless you're whitelisted and that's doubtful.

....w¡ñ§±¤ñ <winstonmvp@gmail.com> wrote:
> Frank Slootweg wrote on 1/13/24 7:44 AM:
[...]
> > In the meantime, I have found that Macrium Reflect (Free) gives some
> > more information, including partition numbers:
> >
> > - Partition 1 seems to be the real - in use - recovery partition,
> > because MR says:
> >
> > 1 - WINRE (None)
> > Primary - NTFS
> > 291.4 MB
> > 400.0 MB
> >
> > - Partition 5 seems to be some kind of left-over recovery partition,
> > because it is listed without a label (no 'WINRE'):
> >
> > 5 - (None)
> > Primary - NTFS
> > 523.4 MB
> > 605.0 MB
> >
> > - Partition 3 is indeed the MSR (Microsoft Reserved Partition):
> >
> > 3 - (None)
> > Primary - Unformatted
> > 120.0 MB
> > 120.0 MB
[...]

> Hi, Frank
> In an admin command prompt(Powershell or Command.com) enter
> reagentc /info
> The result will show WinRE's
> - the status (Recovery - Enabled or Disabled)
> - location of the active WinRE partition.
>
>
> It's unlikely that Partition 1 is the real in-use(active) WinRE partition.
>
> More likely, that the OEM or a post device first use and much earlier
> Windows installation version placed a WinRE before the o/s partition.
> - Up until Windows 10 version 2004, a clean install(including OEM's who
> did not follow GPT partitioning Guidelines) placed the Recovery partition
> at the beginning of the disk. Any upgrade that required a larger recovery
> partition then placed the new one after the Windows partition(carving
> space out of the Windows partition)
> => MSFT fixed this in Windows 10 2004 version releasing an updated
> Media Creation Tool for creating installation media(usb or iso) and also
> ISO builds available in Visual Studio subscriptionsA(fka MSDN and TechNet)
> => Devices that initially had WinRE as the first partition and as the
> active WinRE partition were fine up until that Recovery partition became
> too small to handle an increase in size of the WinRE partitions
> files(primarily winre.wim). Windows by design and consistent with GPT
> partitioning guidelines created a new and active WinRE partition after
> the Windows partition.
>
> i.e. Partition 5 would be your device's 'active, enabled, WinRE
> partition)...and also by design, it does not have a label.

Correct! "reagentc /info" indeed shows the 'Windows RE location:' as
....\partition5\... And indeed on my Windows 11 system the WinRE
partition doesn't have a label.

Thanks for your help. All is clear now.

Big Al wrote on 1/14/24 6:32 AM:
> On 1/14/24 04:52 AM, ...w¡ñ§±¤ñ wrote:
>> ...If using Win10 or Win11 and using System Restore to revisit System
>> Restore in Windows, then it might be of benefit(after successfully
>> installing the Jan 2024 update)to:
>> a. Verify SR is still enabled
>> b. Delete all SR restore points
>> d. Enable SR and create a new SR restore point
>> e. Restart the device
>> f. Re-image the disk(System, MSR, Windows, and WinRE partitions)
> To resize my partition, I did step 'b' first to get space.
>     SR was at the end of the drive.
> Then after, I performed all the others.

I added #1 because, there are reports that SR if previously enabled was
found as disabled.
- there is some unknown why it would be disabled due user reports not
providing sufficient details, some of those are.
1. Users previously upgraded the o/s from 21H2(or earlier) to 22H2
which would make previous restore points useless, thus the upgrade
disables SR
2. Users previously enabled SR, the forgot they disabled for some
reason(recover space because SR points were using multi-GB of space)
3. Win11 upgrade from Win10(same reason as #1)
4. SR being disabled whenever Windows Update(now including WinRE in
cumulative updates) updates the WinRE partition (a few reports of this in
the Enterprise community still running Win10 Pro or Enterprise editions)
5. Possibly other reasons(haven't read about or reported)

i.e. #1 is something to look at if it applies to one's system/device

--
....w¡ñ§±¤ñ

On 1/14/24 09:12 AM, sticks wrote:
> On 1/14/2024 7:25 AM, Big Al wrote:
>> On 1/13/24 06:25 PM, sticks wrote:
>>> On 1/13/2024 4:17 PM, Big Al wrote:
>>>
>>>> I deleted all of them then went back and ran those manual commands
>>>> and I was able now to expand the partition by that 250M.
>>>> The rest of the commands succeeded and then I ran Windows Update and
>>>> it succeeded also.
>>>>
>>>> So I'm happy that my system has a larger Recovery now.  I probably
>>>> should have shoved it 500M, but... It's at 881M now.
>>>
>>> I have to admit, I'm thoroughly confused now.
>>> I have a bunch of messages in this thread saved, but is there any
>>> chance you could post the message ID of the one that had the
>>> instructions you followed to get yours working?  It would be much
>>> appreciated!
>>>
>> https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/kb5028997-instructions-to-manually-resize-your-partition-to-install-the-winre-update-400faa27-9343-461c-ada9-24c8229763bf
>
> Thanks AL!
>
Note: When you get to the part of shrinking the OS by 250M, and the
shrink fails, then just exit and reagentc /enable.
No harm done. That was my issue. The os would not shrink, no room at
the end. I ran Paul's jkdefrag, Mydefrag, and saw the files at the end
stopping the shrink. They were the files I could move / delete etc.
Then I could restart the process.
--
Linux Mint 21.2 Cinnamon
Al

On 1/14/2024 2:34 PM, Big Al wrote:
> On 1/14/24 09:12 AM, sticks wrote:
>> On 1/14/2024 7:25 AM, Big Al wrote:
>>> On 1/13/24 06:25 PM, sticks wrote:
>>>> On 1/13/2024 4:17 PM, Big Al wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> I deleted all of them then went back and ran those manual commands
>>>>> and I was able now to expand the partition by that 250M.
>>>>> The rest of the commands succeeded and then I ran Windows Update
>>>>> and it succeeded also.
>>>>>
>>>>> So I'm happy that my system has a larger Recovery now.  I probably
>>>>> should have shoved it 500M, but... It's at 881M now.
>>>>
>>>> I have to admit, I'm thoroughly confused now.
>>>> I have a bunch of messages in this thread saved, but is there any
>>>> chance you could post the message ID of the one that had the
>>>> instructions you followed to get yours working?  It would be much
>>>> appreciated!
>>>>
>>> https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/kb5028997-instructions-to-manually-resize-your-partition-to-install-the-winre-update-400faa27-9343-461c-ada9-24c8229763bf
>>
>> Thanks AL!
>>
> Note:  When you get to the part of shrinking the OS by 250M, and the
> shrink fails, then just exit and reagentc /enable.
> No harm done.  That was my issue.  The os would not shrink, no room at
> the end.  I ran Paul's jkdefrag, Mydefrag, and saw the files at the end
> stopping the shrink.  They were the files I could move / delete etc.
> Then I could restart the process.

Fortunately, I had lots of space on that drive and partition and did not
have this problem.
I did solve the update problem on this system using Paul's explanation
of basically the same link Al provided. One of the commands was not
quite the right syntax, but help provided the full correct one, and it
worked. Don't know why that was.
I shrank the C: partition by 1000mb and built a new WinRE partition by
the same 1000 mb. Now the total of my RE partition is 1527MB or 1.49
GB. After completing everything on the MS link, I ran updates again and
it installed immediately. I then did another macrium image and deleted
the old one. As far as I'm concerned that should be the end of it for now!
Checked the wife's laptop and it has a 15G RE partition (don't know why
it's that big) and had successfully installed the update.
Checked my newest system that is about 2 years old and has an SSD drive,
and it hadn't been offered it yet. Upon checking it downloaded it and
it too failed. Checked the size of the MR partition and it too is only
about 600MB with less than 80MB free. So, after sending this, it's down
to that computer to do it all on that one too. At least I'm not so
intimidated now. Now I am not a total newbie on computers, but
certainly not a guru of any sorts, but I still can't think of any of the
people I know who could do this. They wouldn't even try. This all
doesn't seem acceptable to me.

Much thanks to everyone, especially Big Al, Paul and Winston!

--
Stand With Israel!
NOTE: If you use Google Groups I don't see you,
unless you're whitelisted and that's doubtful.

On 1/14/24 05:17 PM, sticks wrote:
> On 1/14/2024 2:34 PM, Big Al wrote:
>> On 1/14/24 09:12 AM, sticks wrote:
>>> On 1/14/2024 7:25 AM, Big Al wrote:
>>>> On 1/13/24 06:25 PM, sticks wrote:
>>>>> On 1/13/2024 4:17 PM, Big Al wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> I deleted all of them then went back and ran those manual commands
>>>>>> and I was able now to expand the partition by that 250M.
>>>>>> The rest of the commands succeeded and then I ran Windows Update
>>>>>> and it succeeded also.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> So I'm happy that my system has a larger Recovery now.  I probably
>>>>>> should have shoved it 500M, but... It's at 881M now.
>>>>>
>>>>> I have to admit, I'm thoroughly confused now.
>>>>> I have a bunch of messages in this thread saved, but is there any
>>>>> chance you could post the message ID of the one that had the
>>>>> instructions you followed to get yours working?  It would be much
>>>>> appreciated!
>>>>>
>>>> https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/kb5028997-instructions-to-manually-resize-your-partition-to-install-the-winre-update-400faa27-9343-461c-ada9-24c8229763bf
>>>
>>> Thanks AL!
>>>
>> Note:  When you get to the part of shrinking the OS by 250M, and the
>> shrink fails, then just exit and reagentc /enable.
>> No harm done.  That was my issue.  The os would not shrink, no room at
>> the end.  I ran Paul's jkdefrag, Mydefrag, and saw the files at the
>> end stopping the shrink.  They were the files I could move / delete etc.
>> Then I could restart the process.
>
> Fortunately, I had lots of space on that drive and partition and did not
> have this problem.
> I did solve the update problem on this system using Paul's explanation
> of basically the same link Al provided.  One of the commands was not
> quite the right syntax, but help provided the full correct one, and it
> worked.  Don't know why that was.
> I shrank the C: partition by 1000mb and built a new WinRE partition by
> the same 1000 mb.  Now the total of my RE partition is 1527MB or 1.49
> GB.  After completing everything on the MS link, I ran updates again and
> it installed immediately.  I then did another macrium image and deleted
> the old one.  As far as I'm concerned that should be the end of it for now!
> Checked the wife's laptop and it has a 15G RE partition (don't know why
> it's that big) and had successfully installed the update.
> Checked my newest system that is about 2 years old and has an SSD drive,
> and it hadn't been offered it yet.  Upon checking it downloaded it and
> it too failed.  Checked the size of the MR partition and it too is only
> about 600MB with less than 80MB free.  So, after sending this, it's down
> to that computer to do it all on that one too.  At least I'm not so
> intimidated now.  Now I am not a total newbie on computers, but
> certainly not a guru of any sorts, but I still can't think of any of the
> people I know who could do this.  They wouldn't even try.  This all
> doesn't seem acceptable to me.
>
> Much thanks to everyone, especially Big Al, Paul and Winston!
>
>
>
I kinda wish I had added 1G to mine rather than 250. I may go back one
day and up it. Now that I know how.
--
Linux Mint 21.2 Cinnamon
Al

On 1/14/2024 6:11 PM, Big Al wrote:
> On 1/14/24 05:17 PM, sticks wrote:
>> On 1/14/2024 2:34 PM, Big Al wrote:
>>> On 1/14/24 09:12 AM, sticks wrote:
>>>> On 1/14/2024 7:25 AM, Big Al wrote:
>>>>> On 1/13/24 06:25 PM, sticks wrote:
>>>>>> On 1/13/2024 4:17 PM, Big Al wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I deleted all of them then went back and ran those manual commands and I was able now to expand the partition by that 250M.
>>>>>>> The rest of the commands succeeded and then I ran Windows Update and it succeeded also.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> So I'm happy that my system has a larger Recovery now.  I probably should have shoved it 500M, but... It's at 881M now.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I have to admit, I'm thoroughly confused now.
>>>>>> I have a bunch of messages in this thread saved, but is there any chance you could post the message ID of the one that had the instructions you followed to get yours working?  It would be much appreciated!
>>>>>>
>>>>> https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/kb5028997-instructions-to-manually-resize-your-partition-to-install-the-winre-update-400faa27-9343-461c-ada9-24c8229763bf
>>>>
>>>> Thanks AL!
>>>>
>>> Note:  When you get to the part of shrinking the OS by 250M, and the shrink fails, then just exit and reagentc /enable.
>>> No harm done.  That was my issue.  The os would not shrink, no room at the end.  I ran Paul's jkdefrag, Mydefrag, and saw the files at the end stopping the shrink.  They were the files I could move / delete etc.
>>> Then I could restart the process.
>>
>> Fortunately, I had lots of space on that drive and partition and did not have this problem.
>> I did solve the update problem on this system using Paul's explanation of basically the same link Al provided.  One of the commands was not quite the right syntax, but help provided the full correct one, and it worked.  Don't know why that was.
>> I shrank the C: partition by 1000mb and built a new WinRE partition by the same 1000 mb.  Now the total of my RE partition is 1527MB or 1.49 GB.  After completing everything on the MS link, I ran updates again and it installed immediately.  I then did another macrium image and deleted the old one.  As far as I'm concerned that should be the end of it for now!
>> Checked the wife's laptop and it has a 15G RE partition (don't know why it's that big) and had successfully installed the update.
>> Checked my newest system that is about 2 years old and has an SSD drive, and it hadn't been offered it yet.  Upon checking it downloaded it and it too failed.  Checked the size of the MR partition and it too is only about 600MB with less than 80MB free.  So, after sending this, it's down to that computer to do it all on that one too.  At least I'm not so intimidated now.  Now I am not a total newbie on computers, but certainly not a guru of any sorts, but I still can't think of any of the people I know who could do this.  They wouldn't even try.  This all doesn't seem acceptable to me.
>>
>> Much thanks to everyone, especially Big Al, Paul and Winston!
>>
>>
>>
> I kinda wish I had added 1G to mine rather than 250.  I may go back one day and up it.   Now that I know how.

Since I had one more Patch Tuesday to do, I decided to try using partition
tools, rather than diskpart.

I tried Paragon PM14 Free, and it was leaving little gaps between
partitions. I fired up Linux gparted, and I was able to shrink C:
by whatever I wanted, then use gparted to move the Reserved partition
to the left. Then, resized the Reserved partition (which is a hidden type),
and it all went fine. This means, I did not actually delete Reserved
and make a new one. It's the same partition it was before, just resized.

I did a reagentc /disable, did my partition stuff, then reagentc /enable
afterwards. '4441 installed (because at that point, I'd plugged
the Ethernet cable back in). The contents of Reserved look the same as
the other Windows 10 ones.

This is not a major savings by any means, and no simpler. But when it
comes to shrinking and moving, since Windows is at rest while Linux
runs, there is hardly any resistance to what you are doing. Maybe
I didn't really need to disable reagentc, and I could have left it alone.

This means, when '4441 installs, it would have to remove the old WinRE.wim
before installing the new bigger one.

Paul

On 1/14/2024 4:17 PM, sticks wrote:
> Checked my newest system that is about 2 years old and has an SSD drive,
> and it hadn't been offered it yet.  Upon checking it downloaded it and
> it too failed.  Checked the size of the MR partition and it too is only
> about 600MB with less than 80MB free.  So, after sending this, it's down
> to that computer to do it all on that one too.  At least I'm not so
> intimidated now.

Well that didn't go as easily as I had hoped!
Once again I followed the directions on the link Big Al gave. The only
difference was this system is GPT and not MBR. No problem, directions
were easy enough. All went fine until the last 2 steps, step 8,
re-enable WinRE. It couldn't do it. Can't remember the exact wording,
but it couldn't find the WinRE.wim file. I did find a copy of the file
on the disk, and tried copying it into C:\windows\system32\recovery but
that alone did not work. After a little researching, one suggestion was
that the ReAgent.xml file was somehow corrupted or contained faulty
information and if the .wim file was there windows would recreate the
..xml. So I renamed it and went to check.

reagentc /info still said it was disabled and had no location
So, I then tried reagentc /enable and it worked.

Says it is enabled and it created a new xml file.
Went to windows update and the damn 5034441 is finally installed on all
the computers here.
Wow, I sure hope grandma can do this!

--
Stand With Israel!
NOTE: If you use Google Groups I don't see you,
unless you're whitelisted and that's doubtful.

On 1/14/24 07:04 PM, Paul wrote:
> On 1/14/2024 6:11 PM, Big Al wrote:
>> On 1/14/24 05:17 PM, sticks wrote:
>>> On 1/14/2024 2:34 PM, Big Al wrote:
>>>> On 1/14/24 09:12 AM, sticks wrote:
>>>>> On 1/14/2024 7:25 AM, Big Al wrote:
>>>>>> On 1/13/24 06:25 PM, sticks wrote:
>>>>>>> On 1/13/2024 4:17 PM, Big Al wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> I deleted all of them then went back and ran those manual commands and I was able now to expand the partition by that 250M.
>>>>>>>> The rest of the commands succeeded and then I ran Windows Update and it succeeded also.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> So I'm happy that my system has a larger Recovery now.  I probably should have shoved it 500M, but... It's at 881M now.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I have to admit, I'm thoroughly confused now.
>>>>>>> I have a bunch of messages in this thread saved, but is there any chance you could post the message ID of the one that had the instructions you followed to get yours working?  It would be much appreciated!
>>>>>>>
>>>>>> https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/kb5028997-instructions-to-manually-resize-your-partition-to-install-the-winre-update-400faa27-9343-461c-ada9-24c8229763bf
>>>>>
>>>>> Thanks AL!
>>>>>
>>>> Note:  When you get to the part of shrinking the OS by 250M, and the shrink fails, then just exit and reagentc /enable.
>>>> No harm done.  That was my issue.  The os would not shrink, no room at the end.  I ran Paul's jkdefrag, Mydefrag, and saw the files at the end stopping the shrink.  They were the files I could move / delete etc.
>>>> Then I could restart the process.
>>>
>>> Fortunately, I had lots of space on that drive and partition and did not have this problem.
>>> I did solve the update problem on this system using Paul's explanation of basically the same link Al provided.  One of the commands was not quite the right syntax, but help provided the full correct one, and it worked.  Don't know why that was.
>>> I shrank the C: partition by 1000mb and built a new WinRE partition by the same 1000 mb.  Now the total of my RE partition is 1527MB or 1.49 GB.  After completing everything on the MS link, I ran updates again and it installed immediately.  I then did another macrium image and deleted the old one.  As far as I'm concerned that should be the end of it for now!
>>> Checked the wife's laptop and it has a 15G RE partition (don't know why it's that big) and had successfully installed the update.
>>> Checked my newest system that is about 2 years old and has an SSD drive, and it hadn't been offered it yet.  Upon checking it downloaded it and it too failed.  Checked the size of the MR partition and it too is only about 600MB with less than 80MB free.  So, after sending this, it's down to that computer to do it all on that one too.  At least I'm not so intimidated now.  Now I am not a total newbie on computers, but certainly not a guru of any sorts, but I still can't think of any of the people I know who could do this.  They wouldn't even try.  This all doesn't seem acceptable to me.
>>>
>>> Much thanks to everyone, especially Big Al, Paul and Winston!
>>>
>>>
>>>
>> I kinda wish I had added 1G to mine rather than 250.  I may go back one day and up it.   Now that I know how.
>
> Since I had one more Patch Tuesday to do, I decided to try using partition
> tools, rather than diskpart.
>
> I tried Paragon PM14 Free, and it was leaving little gaps between
> partitions. I fired up Linux gparted, and I was able to shrink C:
> by whatever I wanted, then use gparted to move the Reserved partition
> to the left. Then, resized the Reserved partition (which is a hidden type),
> and it all went fine. This means, I did not actually delete Reserved
> and make a new one. It's the same partition it was before, just resized.
>
> I did a reagentc /disable, did my partition stuff, then reagentc /enable
> afterwards. '4441 installed (because at that point, I'd plugged
> the Ethernet cable back in). The contents of Reserved look the same as
> the other Windows 10 ones.
>
What "stuff" did you do? If you resized the partition with gparted, I
would think the job was done.

> This is not a major savings by any means, and no simpler. But when it
> comes to shrinking and moving, since Windows is at rest while Linux
> runs, there is hardly any resistance to what you are doing. Maybe
> I didn't really need to disable reagentc, and I could have left it alone.
>
> This means, when '4441 installs, it would have to remove the old WinRE.wim
> before installing the new bigger one.
>
> Paul

--
Linux Mint 21.2 Cinnamon
Al

sticks wrote on 1/14/24 3:17 PM:
> On 1/14/2024 2:34 PM, Big Al wrote:
>> On 1/14/24 09:12 AM, sticks wrote:
>>> On 1/14/2024 7:25 AM, Big Al wrote:
>>>> On 1/13/24 06:25 PM, sticks wrote:
>>>>> On 1/13/2024 4:17 PM, Big Al wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> I deleted all of them then went back and ran those manual commands
>>>>>> and I was able now to expand the partition by that 250M.
>>>>>> The rest of the commands succeeded and then I ran Windows Update
>>>>>> and it succeeded also.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> So I'm happy that my system has a larger Recovery now.  I probably
>>>>>> should have shoved it 500M, but... It's at 881M now.
>>>>>
>>>>> I have to admit, I'm thoroughly confused now.
>>>>> I have a bunch of messages in this thread saved, but is there any
>>>>> chance you could post the message ID of the one that had the
>>>>> instructions you followed to get yours working?  It would be much
>>>>> appreciated!
>>>>>
>>>> https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/kb5028997-instructions-to-manually-resize-your-partition-to-install-the-winre-update-400faa27-9343-461c-ada9-24c8229763bf
>>>>
>>>
>>> Thanks AL!
>>>
>> Note:  When you get to the part of shrinking the OS by 250M, and the
>> shrink fails, then just exit and reagentc /enable.
>> No harm done.  That was my issue.  The os would not shrink, no room at
>> the end.  I ran Paul's jkdefrag, Mydefrag, and saw the files at the end
>> stopping the shrink.  They were the files I could move / delete etc.
>> Then I could restart the process.
>
> Fortunately, I had lots of space on that drive and partition and did not
> have this problem.
> I did solve the update problem on this system using Paul's explanation of
> basically the same link Al provided.  One of the commands was not quite
> the right syntax, but help provided the full correct one, and it worked.
> Don't know why that was.
> I shrank the C: partition by 1000mb and built a new WinRE partition by
> the same 1000 mb.  Now the total of my RE partition is 1527MB or 1.49
> GB.  After completing everything on the MS link, I ran updates again and
> it installed immediately.  I then did another macrium image and deleted
> the old one.  As far as I'm concerned that should be the end of it for now!
> Checked the wife's laptop and it has a 15G RE partition (don't know why
> it's that big) and had successfully installed the update.
> Checked my newest system that is about 2 years old and has an SSD drive,
> and it hadn't been offered it yet.  Upon checking it downloaded it and it
> too failed.  Checked the size of the MR partition and it too is only
> about 600MB with less than 80MB free.  So, after sending this, it's down
> to that computer to do it all on that one too.  At least I'm not so
> intimidated now.  Now I am not a total newbie on computers, but certainly
> not a guru of any sorts, but I still can't think of any of the people I
> know who could do this.  They wouldn't even try.  This all doesn't seem
> acceptable to me.
>
> Much thanks to everyone, especially Big Al, Paul and Winston!
>
>
>
The 15 GB RE partition is unlikely the 'Active' WinRE partition.
OEM' place a recovery partition normally at the end of the disk which is
used to restore the device to as-shipped factory condition.
- the successful update didn't use or touch that 15 GB partition.

Open a Command prompt with admin privileges
At the prompt, enter the following then press the return key.
reagentc /info

The result will show the real active WinRe partition # and the disk # on
which it resides.

...w

--
....w¡ñ§±¤ñ

On 1/14/2024 10:10 PM, Big Al wrote:
> On 1/14/24 07:04 PM, Paul wrote:
>> On 1/14/2024 6:11 PM, Big Al wrote:
>>> On 1/14/24 05:17 PM, sticks wrote:
>>>> On 1/14/2024 2:34 PM, Big Al wrote:
>>>>> On 1/14/24 09:12 AM, sticks wrote:
>>>>>> On 1/14/2024 7:25 AM, Big Al wrote:
>>>>>>> On 1/13/24 06:25 PM, sticks wrote:
>>>>>>>> On 1/13/2024 4:17 PM, Big Al wrote:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> I deleted all of them then went back and ran those manual commands and I was able now to expand the partition by that 250M.
>>>>>>>>> The rest of the commands succeeded and then I ran Windows Update and it succeeded also.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> So I'm happy that my system has a larger Recovery now.  I probably should have shoved it 500M, but... It's at 881M now.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> I have to admit, I'm thoroughly confused now.
>>>>>>>> I have a bunch of messages in this thread saved, but is there any chance you could post the message ID of the one that had the instructions you followed to get yours working?  It would be much appreciated!
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/kb5028997-instructions-to-manually-resize-your-partition-to-install-the-winre-update-400faa27-9343-461c-ada9-24c8229763bf
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Thanks AL!
>>>>>>
>>>>> Note:  When you get to the part of shrinking the OS by 250M, and the shrink fails, then just exit and reagentc /enable.
>>>>> No harm done.  That was my issue.  The os would not shrink, no room at the end.  I ran Paul's jkdefrag, Mydefrag, and saw the files at the end stopping the shrink.  They were the files I could move / delete etc.
>>>>> Then I could restart the process.
>>>>
>>>> Fortunately, I had lots of space on that drive and partition and did not have this problem.
>>>> I did solve the update problem on this system using Paul's explanation of basically the same link Al provided.  One of the commands was not quite the right syntax, but help provided the full correct one, and it worked.  Don't know why that was.
>>>> I shrank the C: partition by 1000mb and built a new WinRE partition by the same 1000 mb.  Now the total of my RE partition is 1527MB or 1.49 GB.  After completing everything on the MS link, I ran updates again and it installed immediately.  I then did another macrium image and deleted the old one.  As far as I'm concerned that should be the end of it for now!
>>>> Checked the wife's laptop and it has a 15G RE partition (don't know why it's that big) and had successfully installed the update.
>>>> Checked my newest system that is about 2 years old and has an SSD drive, and it hadn't been offered it yet.  Upon checking it downloaded it and it too failed.  Checked the size of the MR partition and it too is only about 600MB with less than 80MB free.  So, after sending this, it's down to that computer to do it all on that one too.  At least I'm not so intimidated now.  Now I am not a total newbie on computers, but certainly not a guru of any sorts, but I still can't think of any of the people I know who could do this.  They wouldn't even try.  This all doesn't seem acceptable to me.
>>>>
>>>> Much thanks to everyone, especially Big Al, Paul and Winston!
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>> I kinda wish I had added 1G to mine rather than 250.  I may go back one day and up it.   Now that I know how.
>>
>> Since I had one more Patch Tuesday to do, I decided to try using partition
>> tools, rather than diskpart.
>>
>> I tried Paragon PM14 Free, and it was leaving little gaps between
>> partitions. I fired up Linux gparted, and I was able to shrink C:
>> by whatever I wanted, then use gparted to move the Reserved partition
>> to the left. Then, resized the Reserved partition (which is a hidden type),
>> and it all went fine. This means, I did not actually delete Reserved
>> and make a new one. It's the same partition it was before, just resized.
>>
>> I did a reagentc /disable, did my partition stuff, then reagentc /enable
>> afterwards. '4441 installed (because at that point, I'd plugged
>> the Ethernet cable back in). The contents of Reserved look the same as
>> the other Windows 10 ones.
>>
> What "stuff" did you do?  If you resized the partition with gparted, I would think the job was done.

I initially started work with PM14 on Windows, because I wanted to
see if PM14 could manage to do the whole thing. Cleaning up the
cosmetic issues on Linux was a bit easier, and I finished the process
by doing the Reserved origin shift and resize there. I think Paragon
did not want to resize the Reserved partition, but it allowed the
origin to move.

Of the two, the Linux gparted seemed to be the most capable, but
that's a hard sell for the audience. I was mainly curious to see
if I could do it, without have to erase the partition, create
a new one, format it, and so on.

I would have preferred that Paragon PM14 Free, be a bit more
cooperative. I believe there is a later free version than 2014. They offer
Move/Resize as the only functional thing on their Free version,
which is better than the vanilla Resize in Disk Management. Some
OPs on Paragon, require a reboot. It's not "Apple Magical" at all.
When it is time to reboot, you will be thinking about your
old Ghost days. But that's the price to pay, for asking it
to work on data that is "not at rest".

Paul

On 1/14/2024 9:44 PM, sticks wrote:
> On 1/14/2024 4:17 PM, sticks wrote:
>> Checked my newest system that is about 2 years old and has an SSD drive, and it hadn't been offered it yet.  Upon checking it downloaded it and it too failed.  Checked the size of the MR partition and it too is only about 600MB with less than 80MB free.  So, after sending this, it's down to that computer to do it all on that one too.  At least I'm not so intimidated now.
>
> Well that didn't go as easily as I had hoped!
> Once again I followed the directions on the link Big Al gave.  The only difference was this system is GPT and not MBR.  No problem, directions were easy enough.  All went fine until the last 2 steps, step 8, re-enable WinRE.  It couldn't do it.  Can't remember the exact wording, but it couldn't find the WinRE.wim file.  I did find a copy of the file on the disk, and tried copying it into C:\windows\system32\recovery but that alone did not work.  After a little researching, one suggestion was that the ReAgent.xml file was somehow corrupted or contained faulty information and if the .wim file was there windows would recreate the .xml.  So I renamed it and went to check.
>
> reagentc /info still said it was disabled and had no location
> So, I then tried reagentc /enable and it worked.
>
> Says it is enabled and it created a new xml file.
> Went to windows update and the damn 5034441 is finally installed on all the computers here.
> Wow, I sure hope grandma can do this!

That Linux Grandma, she gets around. She can bake a
cake while installing '4441. Fixing Windows Update is
no harder than making a batch of shortbread cookies.

One of the steps is to delete the Reserved partition (with Override, to make it possible).

Creating a new partition and formatting it NTFS, of course that will erase the
previous WinRE.wim . And that was one of the concerns I expressed in my first
reading of the procedure, is that "reagentc /enable" after all is said and
done, the partition is empty, and a routine like that should be sniffing
for details.

The real question, is why this was working in the first place. Why
did "reagentc /enable" work for me ? I don't know the answer to that.

Paul

On 1/15/24 07:46 AM, Paul wrote:
> On 1/14/2024 10:10 PM, Big Al wrote:
>> On 1/14/24 07:04 PM, Paul wrote:
>>> On 1/14/2024 6:11 PM, Big Al wrote:
>>>> On 1/14/24 05:17 PM, sticks wrote:
>>>>> On 1/14/2024 2:34 PM, Big Al wrote:
>>>>>> On 1/14/24 09:12 AM, sticks wrote:
>>>>>>> On 1/14/2024 7:25 AM, Big Al wrote:
>>>>>>>> On 1/13/24 06:25 PM, sticks wrote:
>>>>>>>>> On 1/13/2024 4:17 PM, Big Al wrote:
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> I deleted all of them then went back and ran those manual commands and I was able now to expand the partition by that 250M.
>>>>>>>>>> The rest of the commands succeeded and then I ran Windows Update and it succeeded also.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> So I'm happy that my system has a larger Recovery now.  I probably should have shoved it 500M, but... It's at 881M now.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> I have to admit, I'm thoroughly confused now.
>>>>>>>>> I have a bunch of messages in this thread saved, but is there any chance you could post the message ID of the one that had the instructions you followed to get yours working?  It would be much appreciated!
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/kb5028997-instructions-to-manually-resize-your-partition-to-install-the-winre-update-400faa27-9343-461c-ada9-24c8229763bf
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Thanks AL!
>>>>>>>
>>>>>> Note:  When you get to the part of shrinking the OS by 250M, and the shrink fails, then just exit and reagentc /enable.
>>>>>> No harm done.  That was my issue.  The os would not shrink, no room at the end.  I ran Paul's jkdefrag, Mydefrag, and saw the files at the end stopping the shrink.  They were the files I could move / delete etc.
>>>>>> Then I could restart the process.
>>>>>
>>>>> Fortunately, I had lots of space on that drive and partition and did not have this problem.
>>>>> I did solve the update problem on this system using Paul's explanation of basically the same link Al provided.  One of the commands was not quite the right syntax, but help provided the full correct one, and it worked.  Don't know why that was.
>>>>> I shrank the C: partition by 1000mb and built a new WinRE partition by the same 1000 mb.  Now the total of my RE partition is 1527MB or 1.49 GB.  After completing everything on the MS link, I ran updates again and it installed immediately.  I then did another macrium image and deleted the old one.  As far as I'm concerned that should be the end of it for now!
>>>>> Checked the wife's laptop and it has a 15G RE partition (don't know why it's that big) and had successfully installed the update.
>>>>> Checked my newest system that is about 2 years old and has an SSD drive, and it hadn't been offered it yet.  Upon checking it downloaded it and it too failed.  Checked the size of the MR partition and it too is only about 600MB with less than 80MB free.  So, after sending this, it's down to that computer to do it all on that one too.  At least I'm not so intimidated now.  Now I am not a total newbie on computers, but certainly not a guru of any sorts, but I still can't think of any of the people I know who could do this.  They wouldn't even try.  This all doesn't seem acceptable to me.
>>>>>
>>>>> Much thanks to everyone, especially Big Al, Paul and Winston!
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>> I kinda wish I had added 1G to mine rather than 250.  I may go back one day and up it.   Now that I know how.
>>>
>>> Since I had one more Patch Tuesday to do, I decided to try using partition
>>> tools, rather than diskpart.
>>>
>>> I tried Paragon PM14 Free, and it was leaving little gaps between
>>> partitions. I fired up Linux gparted, and I was able to shrink C:
>>> by whatever I wanted, then use gparted to move the Reserved partition
>>> to the left. Then, resized the Reserved partition (which is a hidden type),
>>> and it all went fine. This means, I did not actually delete Reserved
>>> and make a new one. It's the same partition it was before, just resized.
>>>
>>> I did a reagentc /disable, did my partition stuff, then reagentc /enable
>>> afterwards. '4441 installed (because at that point, I'd plugged
>>> the Ethernet cable back in). The contents of Reserved look the same as
>>> the other Windows 10 ones.
>>>
>> What "stuff" did you do?  If you resized the partition with gparted, I would think the job was done.
>
> I initially started work with PM14 on Windows, because I wanted to
> see if PM14 could manage to do the whole thing. Cleaning up the
> cosmetic issues on Linux was a bit easier, and I finished the process
> by doing the Reserved origin shift and resize there. I think Paragon
> did not want to resize the Reserved partition, but it allowed the
> origin to move.
>
> Of the two, the Linux gparted seemed to be the most capable, but
> that's a hard sell for the audience. I was mainly curious to see
> if I could do it, without have to erase the partition, create
> a new one, format it, and so on.
>
> I would have preferred that Paragon PM14 Free, be a bit more
> cooperative. I believe there is a later free version than 2014. They offer
> Move/Resize as the only functional thing on their Free version,
> which is better than the vanilla Resize in Disk Management. Some
> OPs on Paragon, require a reboot. It's not "Apple Magical" at all.
> When it is time to reboot, you will be thinking about your
> old Ghost days. But that's the price to pay, for asking it
> to work on data that is "not at rest".
>
> Paul
>
Did you ever try mintool partition wizard?
https://www.partitionwizard.com/free-partition-manager.html
--
Linux Mint 21.2 Cinnamon
Al

On 1/15/24 07:56 AM, Paul wrote:
> On 1/14/2024 9:44 PM, sticks wrote:
>> On 1/14/2024 4:17 PM, sticks wrote:
>>> Checked my newest system that is about 2 years old and has an SSD drive, and it hadn't been offered it yet.  Upon checking it downloaded it and it too failed.  Checked the size of the MR partition and it too is only about 600MB with less than 80MB free.  So, after sending this, it's down to that computer to do it all on that one too.  At least I'm not so intimidated now.
>>
>> Well that didn't go as easily as I had hoped!
>> Once again I followed the directions on the link Big Al gave.  The only difference was this system is GPT and not MBR.  No problem, directions were easy enough.  All went fine until the last 2 steps, step 8, re-enable WinRE.  It couldn't do it.  Can't remember the exact wording, but it couldn't find the WinRE.wim file.  I did find a copy of the file on the disk, and tried copying it into C:\windows\system32\recovery but that alone did not work.  After a little researching, one suggestion was that the ReAgent.xml file was somehow corrupted or contained faulty information and if the .wim file was there windows would recreate the .xml.  So I renamed it and went to check.
>>
>> reagentc /info still said it was disabled and had no location
>> So, I then tried reagentc /enable and it worked.
>>
>> Says it is enabled and it created a new xml file.
>> Went to windows update and the damn 5034441 is finally installed on all the computers here.
>> Wow, I sure hope grandma can do this!
>
> That Linux Grandma, she gets around. She can bake a
> cake while installing '4441. Fixing Windows Update is
> no harder than making a batch of shortbread cookies.
>
> One of the steps is to delete the Reserved partition (with Override, to make it possible).
>
> Creating a new partition and formatting it NTFS, of course that will erase the
> previous WinRE.wim . And that was one of the concerns I expressed in my first
> reading of the procedure, is that "reagentc /enable" after all is said and
> done, the partition is empty, and a routine like that should be sniffing
> for details.
>
> The real question, is why this was working in the first place. Why
> did "reagentc /enable" work for me ? I don't know the answer to that.
>
> Paul
There's a link to a powershell script, .ps1, that is supposed to fix
this issue by building the winre.wim outside and then moving it to
Recovery. I haven't looked at my partition since I fixed it, wonder if
it's empty.... hmm another day.
--
Linux Mint 21.2 Cinnamon
Al

On 1/15/2024 4:03 AM, ...w¡ñ§±¤ñ wrote:
> sticks wrote on 1/14/24 3:17 PM:
>> On 1/14/2024 2:34 PM, Big Al wrote:
>>> On 1/14/24 09:12 AM, sticks wrote:
>>>> On 1/14/2024 7:25 AM, Big Al wrote:
>>>>> On 1/13/24 06:25 PM, sticks wrote:
>>>>>> On 1/13/2024 4:17 PM, Big Al wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I deleted all of them then went back and ran those manual commands and I was able now to expand the partition by that 250M.
>>>>>>> The rest of the commands succeeded and then I ran Windows Update and it succeeded also.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> So I'm happy that my system has a larger Recovery now.  I probably should have shoved it 500M, but... It's at 881M now.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I have to admit, I'm thoroughly confused now.
>>>>>> I have a bunch of messages in this thread saved, but is there any chance you could post the message ID of the one that had the instructions you followed to get yours working?  It would be much appreciated!
>>>>>>
>>>>> https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/kb5028997-instructions-to-manually-resize-your-partition-to-install-the-winre-update-400faa27-9343-461c-ada9-24c8229763bf
>>>>
>>>> Thanks AL!
>>>>
>>> Note:  When you get to the part of shrinking the OS by 250M, and the shrink fails, then just exit and reagentc /enable.
>>> No harm done.  That was my issue.  The os would not shrink, no room at the end.  I ran Paul's jkdefrag, Mydefrag, and saw the files at the end stopping the shrink.  They were the files I could move / delete etc.
>>> Then I could restart the process.
>>
>> Fortunately, I had lots of space on that drive and partition and did not have this problem.
>> I did solve the update problem on this system using Paul's explanation of basically the same link Al provided.  One of the commands was not quite the right syntax, but help provided the full correct one, and it worked.  Don't know why that was.
>> I shrank the C: partition by 1000mb and built a new WinRE partition by the same 1000 mb.  Now the total of my RE partition is 1527MB or 1.49 GB.  After completing everything on the MS link, I ran updates again and it installed immediately.  I then did another macrium image and deleted the old one.  As far as I'm concerned that should be the end of it for now!
>> Checked the wife's laptop and it has a 15G RE partition (don't know why it's that big) and had successfully installed the update.
>> Checked my newest system that is about 2 years old and has an SSD drive, and it hadn't been offered it yet.  Upon checking it downloaded it and it too failed.  Checked the size of the MR partition and it too is only about 600MB with less than 80MB free.  So, after sending this, it's down to that computer to do it all on that one too.  At least I'm not so intimidated now.  Now I am not a total newbie on computers, but certainly not a guru of any sorts, but I still can't think of any of the people I know who could do this.  They wouldn't even try.  This all doesn't seem acceptable to me.
>>
>> Much thanks to everyone, especially Big Al, Paul and Winston!
>>
>>
>>
> The 15 GB RE partition is unlikely the 'Active' WinRE partition.
> OEM' place a recovery partition normally at the end of the disk which is used to restore the device to as-shipped factory condition.
>  - the successful update didn't use or touch that 15 GB partition.
>
> Open a Command prompt with admin privileges
> At the prompt, enter the following then press the return key.
>  reagentc /info
>
> The result will show the real active WinRe partition # and the disk # on which it resides.
>
>  ...w
>

And if it said Partition 8 was the active WinRE, you could open Disk Management,
and all the non-visible partitions use their Partition Number in the Disk Management
table. You can click an entry at the top, and see it change slightly in the
block view. That helps confirm what is what.

I just use disktype.exe (a Cygwin executable), as a double-click. I've removed
most of the boring identifiers and just kept the basics.

> .\disktype /dev/sda <=== being Cygwin, it uses foreign nomenclature, not a problem. This is disk 0.

--- /dev/sda
Block device, size 3.639 TiB (4000787030016 bytes)

Partition 1: "EFI system partition" (FAT32)

Partition 2: 16 MiB "Microsoft reserved partition" (No FS)

Partition 3: 118.7 GiB C: "Basic data partition" (NTFS)

Partition 4: 649 MiB Recovery (NTFS)

Partition 5: 129.0 GiB H: "Basic data partition" (NTFS)

Partition 6: 1.001 GiB Recovery (NTFS)

Partition 7: 682.0 GiB S: "Basic data partition" (NTFS)

That's how I can double check what partitions are there, is disktype.

Paul

On 1/15/2024 7:56 AM, Paul wrote:
> On 1/14/2024 9:44 PM, sticks wrote:
>> On 1/14/2024 4:17 PM, sticks wrote:
>>> Checked my newest system that is about 2 years old and has an SSD drive, and it hadn't been offered it yet.  Upon checking it downloaded it and it too failed.  Checked the size of the MR partition and it too is only about 600MB with less than 80MB free.  So, after sending this, it's down to that computer to do it all on that one too.  At least I'm not so intimidated now.
>>
>> Well that didn't go as easily as I had hoped!
>> Once again I followed the directions on the link Big Al gave.  The only difference was this system is GPT and not MBR.  No problem, directions were easy enough.  All went fine until the last 2 steps, step 8, re-enable WinRE.  It couldn't do it.  Can't remember the exact wording, but it couldn't find the WinRE.wim file.  I did find a copy of the file on the disk, and tried copying it into C:\windows\system32\recovery but that alone did not work.  After a little researching, one suggestion was that the ReAgent.xml file was somehow corrupted or contained faulty information and if the .wim file was there windows would recreate the .xml.  So I renamed it and went to check.
>>
>> reagentc /info still said it was disabled and had no location
>> So, I then tried reagentc /enable and it worked.
>>
>> Says it is enabled and it created a new xml file.
>> Went to windows update and the damn 5034441 is finally installed on all the computers here.
>> Wow, I sure hope grandma can do this!
>
> That Linux Grandma, she gets around. She can bake a
> cake while installing '4441. Fixing Windows Update is
> no harder than making a batch of shortbread cookies.
>
> One of the steps is to delete the Reserved partition (with Override, to make it possible).
>
> Creating a new partition and formatting it NTFS, of course that will erase the
> previous WinRE.wim . And that was one of the concerns I expressed in my first
> reading of the procedure, is that "reagentc /enable" after all is said and
> done, the partition is empty, and a routine like that should be sniffing
> for details.
>
> The real question, is why this was working in the first place. Why
> did "reagentc /enable" work for me ? I don't know the answer to that.
>
> Paul
Having followed up on the KB5034441 not installing, I did the steps to
delete and re-add a larger partition and made it ntfs, etc. Now, the KB
installed successfully, but the (in my case partition 4 ) is empty! I
thought the KB would refill it during installation. Suggestions?

In message <uo3jfs$vm9h$1@dont-email.me>, rsutton
<rsutton43@comcast.net> writes
>Having followed up on the KB5034441 not installing, I did the steps to
>delete and re-add a larger partition and made it ntfs, etc. Now, the KB
>installed successfully, but the (in my case partition 4 ) is empty! I
>thought the KB would refill it during installation. Suggestions?

Maybe MS have now edited the KB so that it instals somewhere else? That
seems like a sensible thing to do if they knew that for many people it
wouldn't fit where they were originally trying to instal it.
--
John Hall
"Acting is merely the art of keeping a large group of people
from coughing."
Sir Ralph Richardson (1902-83)

On 1/15/2024 8:48 AM, Big Al wrote:
> On 1/15/24 07:56 AM, Paul wrote:
>> On 1/14/2024 9:44 PM, sticks wrote:
>>> On 1/14/2024 4:17 PM, sticks wrote:
>>>> Checked my newest system that is about 2 years old and has an SSD drive, and it hadn't been offered it yet.  Upon checking it downloaded it and it too failed.  Checked the size of the MR partition and it too is only about 600MB with less than 80MB free.  So, after sending this, it's down to that computer to do it all on that one too.  At least I'm not so intimidated now.
>>>
>>> Well that didn't go as easily as I had hoped!
>>> Once again I followed the directions on the link Big Al gave.  The only difference was this system is GPT and not MBR.  No problem, directions were easy enough.  All went fine until the last 2 steps, step 8, re-enable WinRE.  It couldn't do it.  Can't remember the exact wording, but it couldn't find the WinRE.wim file.  I did find a copy of the file on the disk, and tried copying it into C:\windows\system32\recovery but that alone did not work.  After a little researching, one suggestion was that the ReAgent.xml file was somehow corrupted or contained faulty information and if the .wim file was there windows would recreate the .xml.  So I renamed it and went to check.
>>>
>>> reagentc /info still said it was disabled and had no location
>>> So, I then tried reagentc /enable and it worked.
>>>
>>> Says it is enabled and it created a new xml file.
>>> Went to windows update and the damn 5034441 is finally installed on all the computers here.
>>> Wow, I sure hope grandma can do this!
>>
>> That Linux Grandma, she gets around. She can bake a
>> cake while installing '4441. Fixing Windows Update is
>> no harder than making a batch of shortbread cookies.
>>
>> One of the steps is to delete the Reserved partition (with Override, to make it possible).
>>
>> Creating a new partition and formatting it NTFS, of course that will erase the
>> previous WinRE.wim . And that was one of the concerns I expressed in my first
>> reading of the procedure, is that "reagentc /enable" after all is said and
>> done, the partition is empty, and a routine like that should be sniffing
>> for details.
>>
>> The real question, is why this was working in the first place. Why
>> did "reagentc /enable" work for me ? I don't know the answer to that.
>>
>>     Paul
> There's a link to a powershell script, .ps1, that is supposed to fix this issue by building the winre.wim outside and then moving it to Recovery.  I haven't looked at my partition since I fixed it, wonder if it's empty.... hmm another day.

Remember, it's easy to get in there. As Admin

diskpart
list disk
select disk 0
list partition
select partition 4
assign letter=K # Temporary assignment of a letter, to a hidden partition
exit.

Now, in an administrator window

dir /ah K:\Recovery\WindowsRE

The permissions are set, to thwart normal access, so this
should not be easy. This is why I use TestDisk 7.0 for
taking screen shots of "success".

The letter K: will be de-asserted on a reboot.
Assigning a letter like this, gives limited access
to a thing. Disk Management, for example, may not
display the letter K: while you are successfully doing
a dir on the thing :-)

Paul