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Patch reliability is unclear, but widespread attacks make patching prudent. Go ahead and patch, but watch out for potential problems. |
.Another year and MS is back to normal, messing up windows update.
I installed the updates on a laptop I use as a test PC and found that KB5034441 will not update because the recovery partition is not big enough.
MS admit this in the release notes with instructions how to extend the partition. How on earth will an average user be able to address this. I wait with bated breath for MS to fix it.
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Yes, the PC is performing normally and all the other updates installed OK. I am not going to extend the recovery partition and will wait and see what MS do.
I installed the updates on a laptop I use as a test PC and found that KB5034441 will not update because the recovery partition is not big enough. MS admit this in the release notes with instructions how to extend the partition. How on earth will an average user be able to address this.
Well, at least you attempted the installation in a test PC instead of a production machine! 👍
BUT, the fact of what you experienced (even though readily and very publicly admitted by Microsoft) and the very good question you pose “How on earth will an average user be able to address this” are probably part why Susan suggests avoiding the patch for now. The other reason for avoiding the patch, she says, is if you don’t have BitLocker enabled.
I’m hoping to be able to tell my computer “friends” that if it doesn’t install, they can just ignore it and go on with their computing lives.
A VERY good plan! Seriously!
Except for those who have WU on “autopilot” and just take whatever comes down the pipe no matter what. Those folks are the ones who might bug you about how to get WU to quit trying to install KB5034441, because they’re sick and tired of it bugging them about how it won’t install!
“Hey, Dr B, how do I get Windows to quit bugging me about an update that won’t install?”
Although there ARE now instructions from MS about how to resize the recovery partition to accommodate this month’s update, they’re not for the faint of heart!
I can confirm one report by an anonymous poster earlier today that KB5034441 can’t be found on the MS Update Catalog site! So, my honest hope is that they pull the update from circulation and redo it so that it can be installed as seamlessly as other security patches have been.
Farther up the support page is a link to instructions of how to enlarge the partition size. I’m not real keen on doing that myself!
Yep! I took a look at them a bit ago and included the link in my post here. (Trying to avoid dupe posts in different topics). That kinda stuff is what I’d call “heavy lifting”. If you it and don’t keep track of just which level of command prompt you’re on, you could find yourself up a creek without a paddle, inadvertently. That’s why I labeled the instructions as not being for the faint of heart.
On a little bit of a side note, the first mention of the instructions being in the bulletin for KB5034441 was posted on THIS topic by the original poster at just after 5 pm server time, which is just after 3 pm Redmond time. Makes me think that MS didn’t include them until they got enough static from the right sources about “just increase the partition size” being in the bulletin without any guidance of where instructions might be on just how to do that!
For all who are following this topic and it’s progress, here’s a link to a post here on AskWoody from someone who’s been able to accomplish partition resizing with the help of a piece of free third party software. The link will open in a new tab or window:
https://www.askwoody.com/forums/topic/ready-for-the-new-patching-year/#post-2620591
Pay particular attention to the last paragraph of the post.
Just a question.
I’ve checked my Dell laptop with a single SSD and have Partitions as follows:
Partition 1 650MB EFI System
OS (C:) 459.54GB (Bitlocker Encrypted…)
Partition 4 990MB Healthy Recovery Partition (Win RE Partition)
Partition 5 14.51GB Healthy Recovery Partition
Partition 6 1.15GB Healthy Recovery Partition
So, is Partition 4 big enough to install KB5034441?
Dell Inspiron 16 Plus 7640 Core Ultra 7 155H 32GB Win 11 Pro 23H2 (22631.5189)
Dell Inspiron 15 7580 i7 16GB Win 11 pro 24H2 (26100.3775),
Microsoft 365 Version 2502 (18526.20168)
Location: UK
So, is Partition 4 big enough to install KB5034441?
From what’s been posted on-line about this problem, you must add 250MB to the recovery partition in order for the update to install properly.
That means, if your Winre.wim is standard (i.e. it hasn’t been customized with additional programs/utilities), it needs to be at least 750MB (the original 500MB + 250MB.)
@John, since yours is currently 990 MB, unless you’re using a custom Winre.wim, the update should install just fine.
I don’t think you are the only one who’s tried increasing the size of the recovery partition only for KB5034441 to fail.
I’ve had the opposite experience.
KB5034441 updated WinRE.wim to Version 10.0.19041, ServicePack Build 3920 despite my System Reserved partition being only 549.0 MB with 89.8 MB free. After the update the free space on my System Reserved partition was reduced to 72 MB. Here is the output of the latest Powershell script to extract details of my recovery partition:
You can read more about my experience in this post (#2633906) in the “Windows RE — Curiouser and Curiouser” topic.
All this would appear to throw doubt on the theory that failure to install KB5034441 is due to partition size, despite what Microsoft says.
Others have advised that if installation of KB5034441 fails they should wait for Microsoft to fix the problem. I can only endorse that advice; Microsoft have dug themselves a hole that they need to scramble out of. Encouraging users to indulge in complex jiggery-pokery (with the prospect that it might not fix anything) is bad advice IMO.
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