Microsoft Did It Again! Beware Of Bugged Update KB5034441

[Deleted member 57642]

Maybe they're just trying to kill Windows 10 - sooner than expected.

 

[ThrashZone]

I just followed the M$ instructions for this and it is pretty easy. It was not however brainless, and not everything works exactly as the instructions indicate. Example, I have an older laptop (Lenovo T470) my wife uses on the couch. It has a 250GB SSD in it. I followed the instructions to shrink the Windows partition by 250MB. It told me I couldn't shrink it, there wasn't enough free space. This is despite the fact that there was something like 180GB of free space on the partition. Luckily, I overprovisioned the drive and didn't need to mess around any further, I just took some free space from the unallocated space. Again, this wasn't difficult, but for most users this will be a no-go as soon as they need to bring up the command prompt.

Hi,
Yeah asked on 11f and got a lot of lectures lol

CMD format ssd for install

Hi, Can someone please give me cdm strings to put the system reserved in front of C and just make it 2-3gb+- so it's not at the end of a 1-2tb ssd this seems so weird and with m.2/ ssd provisioning... and system imaging to smaller ssd's in the future it doesn't fit my needs at the end...

www.elevenforum.com

Anyway couple finally gave some info
Not sure if it works yet though.

Siw2 didn't well not enough for ms to reuse it.

 

[Regeneration]

Where does anything anywhere say anything about this update having bugs? We certainly can bash Microsoft when due. They regularly provide plenty of fodder to do just that. But there is no need to fabricate and misrepresent issues where there is no evidence they exist.

The update itself, as far as we know thus far, does NOT contain any bugs. "Safely" erroring out, without causing any collateral damage because of a lack of space is not a bug. Safely backing out is what it should do.

In my experience, when errors occur with Windows Update, if a couple simple reboots does not clear them, then just sitting it out and waiting a couple weeks for Microsoft to address the issue with a new Windows Update, does.

Resizing partitions is not hard if you know what you are doing. But even then, it can be confusing. And there is always the risk something might go wrong - especially if disk space is already limited. There are already many reports of this update failing to install so Microsoft is surely is aware of it. IMO, waiting it out for a couple weeks to see what happens is the best course of action - for now.


Curious how you expect them to be able to predict years in advance what will be needed. I note "years ago", when SSDs first starting appearing and being used as boot drives, 32GB SSD drives were not uncommon. 64GB and 128GB were almost luxuries. Surely if 2GB of that precious space was being snagged by Windows, all those Windows/Microsoft bashers would have complained that Microsoft was needlessly hogging space. Microsoft can't win. Its as if they are a political party. No matter what they do, or don't do, they WILL be criticized for it. And Microsoft knows that.

It would be great if requirements years from now could easily be predicted. The down side would be the PowerBall would have 1000s of jackpot winners with every drawing.

If you know that 95 percent of Windows 10 PCs have a recovery partition of 520MB, you shouldn't release an update that requires more.

Do you really expect every user... most without technical knowledge, kids, elderly, and such to perform such a task like manually resizing a partition?

Resizing OS partitions can take a while and if it's interrupted may cause data loss and even brick the whole OS.

 

[ThrashZone]

Where does anything anywhere say anything about this update having bugs? We certainly can bash Microsoft when due. They regularly provide plenty of fodder to do just that. But there is no need to fabricate and misrepresent issues where there is no evidence they exist.

The update itself, as far as we know thus far, does NOT contain any bugs. "Safely" erroring out, without causing any collateral damage because of a lack of space is not a bug. Safely backing out is what it should do.

In my experience, when errors occur with Windows Update, if a couple simple reboots does not clear them, then just sitting it out and waiting a couple weeks for Microsoft to address the issue with a new Windows Update, does.

Resizing partitions is not hard if you know what you are doing. But even then, it can be confusing. And there is always the risk something might go wrong - especially if disk space is already limited. There are already many reports of this update failing to install so Microsoft is surely is aware of it. IMO, waiting it out for a couple weeks to see what happens is the best course of action - for now.


Curious how you expect them to be able to predict years in advance what will be needed. I note "years ago", when SSDs first starting appearing and being used as boot drives, 32GB SSD drives were not uncommon. 64GB and 128GB were almost luxuries. Surely if 2GB of that precious space was being snagged by Windows, all those Windows/Microsoft bashers would have complained that Microsoft was needlessly hogging space. Microsoft can't win. Its as if they are a political party. No matter what they do, or don't do, they WILL be criticized for it. And Microsoft knows that.

It would be great if requirements years from now could easily be predicted. The down side would be the PowerBall would have 1000s of jackpot winners with every drawing.

Hi,
Well after seeing your reply mate
If you don't think making a user resize a recovery partition to install a bitlocker security hole as not a buggy update there is nothing to discus with you ever lol

If you know that 95 percent of Windows 10 PCs have a recovery partition of 520MB, you shouldn't release an update that requires more.

Do you really expect every user... most without technical knowledge, kids, elderly, and such to perform such a task like manually resizing a partition?

Resizing OS partitions can take a while and if it's interrupted may cause data loss and even brick the whole OS.

Not really bricking but no winRE recovery tools for sure.
Boot files are not on this partition on gpt disk anyway they are on the another one either 100 or 260mb EFI partition and points to C showing the boot files on



But yeah may screw up bitlocker key ? so maybe bricking applies !

 

[Bill_Bright]

If you know that 95 percent of Windows 10 PCs have a recovery partition of 520MB, you shouldn't release an update that requires more.

That does not make it "buggy". It may be poor planning or misguided policy but those are different from bugs.

 

[Cheeseball]

Yesterday Microsoft rolled a several new updates for its Windows OSes as part of its Tuesday monthly update cycle. One of those updates is KB5034441: Windows Recovery Environment update for Windows 10, version 21H2 and 22H2: January 9, 2024.

KB5042320: Windows Recovery Environment update for Windows 10, version 21H2 and 22H2: January 9, 2024 - Microsoft Support

support.microsoft.com

This update is most likely to fail as it attempts to make changes to the recovery partition. When you first install Windows, it automatically creates 500MB recovery partition on the OS drive for the Windows Recovery Environment. And now it appears that 500MB is not enough space to perform an update.

KB5028997: Instructions to manually resize your partition to install the WinRE update - Microsoft Support

support.microsoft.com

Microsoft advises users to manually resize the partition by 250MB.

A risky operation as the OS data needs to be moved around and it is never smart to make adjustments to the OS partition table.

Son of a b****. I thought my new ROG Flow X13 (7940HS-only) had a bad SSD (WD SN740 512GB) and got stuck in a "winload.efi" BSOD bootloop. I was about to return it.

 

[Onasi]

So what’s the consensus, does it affect 11 or nah? Not home today, but tomorrow I am likely to get the updates on my personal system. Didn’t even bother to check what size the recovery partition even is, just left it at default when installing the OS several years ago. Not going to resize anything since the onus is squarely on MS to actually test whether their updates run properly on the default configuration of their own installer. This is staggeringly incompetent of them.

 

[Assimilator]

Yeah I'm with the majority here, this is completely stupidly braindead behaviour from Microsoft. But this is sadly the trend of all companies nowadays; why pay for QAs to release quality code, when you can make your users pay you to QA your rubbish?

 

[ThrashZone]

So what’s the consensus, does it affect 11 or nah? Not home today, but tomorrow I am likely to get the updates on my personal system. Didn’t even bother to check what size the recovery partition even is, just left it at default when installing the OS several years ago. Not going to resize anything since the onus is squarely on MS to actually test whether their updates run properly on the default configuration of their own installer. This is staggeringly incompetent of them.

Yes.

 

[Bill_Bright]

this is completely stupidly braindead behaviour from Microsoft. But this is sadly the trend of all companies nowadays; why pay for QAs to release quality code, when you can make your users pay you to QA your rubbish?

Stupid? No doubt most W10 users, including me, think so.

Braindead? Not likely. As you correctly (IMO) stated, extensive QA testing is expensive. But also, Microsoft surely is focusing most of its resources on Windows 11. So I suspect they gave this (and the bottom line) quite a bit of thought - with the hope many will migrate to W11.

 

[Onasi]

Yes.

All versions? I started digging into it and it seems that the update is marked as 21H2 version for 11. No idea if that means it’s not coming to later ones. I also have BitLocker disabled, so should the update even trigger considering it’s not in use? This is a shitshow.
Whatever, if it fails it fails, it’s not like it is useful for me and MS can clean up their own mess.

 

[ThrashZone]

All versions? I started digging into it and it seems that the update is marked as 21H2 version for 11. No idea if that means it’s not coming to later ones. I also have BitLocker disabled, so should the update even trigger considering it’s not in use? This is a shitshow.
Whatever, if it fails it fails, it’s not like it is useful for me and MS can clean up their own mess.

It's a bitlocker patch so yes all version of windows may see this error installing the patch
23h2 is listed here

Security Update Guide - Microsoft Security Response Center

msrc.microsoft.com

 

[Onasi]

It's a bitlocker patch so yes all version of windows may see this error installing the patch
23h2 is listed here

Security Update Guide - Microsoft Security Response Center

msrc.microsoft.com

It says that for 11 23H2 and 22H2 the WinRE update is automated as part of the cumulative update and will not require the patch triggering the error though. So… we’ll see. I’ll update tomorrow and if it goes through fine then I would assume that later versions are unaffected.

 

[ThrashZone]

It says that for 11 23H2 and 22H2 the WinRE update is automated as part of the cumulative update and will not require the patch triggering the error though. So… we’ll see. I’ll update tomorrow and if it goes through fine then I would assume that later versions are unaffected.

Hi,
Already talking about it here

Jan 2024 Patch Tuesday Update Causing Insufficient Disk Space Errors

Apparently some people are getting errors with the Jan updates. The exact error is 0x80070643 = CBS_E_INSUFFICIENT_DISK_SPACE. To resolve the issue, increase the size of the Recovery Environment partition by 250 MB. Instructions can be found at the link below...

www.elevenforum.com

 

[cvaldes]

Maybe Microsoft should fire all of their Windows engineers and replace them with AI. It might result in better quality code.

All of their decent Windows software engineers left over 10 years ago.

This is yet another example why I never install Windows updates on Patch Tuesday. I generally wait a couple of weeks to see if there are any major bugs with the update.

At some point Microsoft will fix this, maybe release a version of the update that expands the recovery partition before continuing. Or maybe they'll remove some of the bloat from the Windows RE image (winre.wim) file to make it fit in a 500 MB partition.

Either way, Joe Consumer isn't going to follow these steps:

Windows 10 KB5034441 security update fails with 0x80070643 errors

Windows 10 users worldwide report problems installing Microsoft's January Patch Tuesday updates, getting 0x80070643 errors when attempting to install the KB5034441 security update for BitLocker.

www.bleepingcomputer.com

as a workaround.

Lol

 

[P4-630]

It's a bitlocker patch so yes all version of windows may see this error installing the patch
23h2 is listed here

Security Update Guide - Microsoft Security Response Center

msrc.microsoft.com

So this one seems to be it on my win11 23H2 system:

My Recovery Partition is 611 MB

 

[ThrashZone]

So this one seems to be it on my win11 23H2 system:
View attachment 329105

My Recovery Partition is 611 MB

Hi,
You may want to enlarge it now
If it's after C just make the damn thing 1gb.
Free minitool can do this easily where as diskpart not so much pita
MiniTool Partition Wizard 11.5 version clean don't update

 

[Assimilator]

I've been using Windows for over two decades and have no intention of fucking around with my boot partition just so Microsoft can install an update that should be doing this shit automatically.

All of their decent Windows software engineers left over 10 years ago.

Except Raymond Chen.

 

[cvaldes]

I've been using Windows for over two decades and have no intention of fucking around with my boot partition just so Microsoft can install an update that should be doing this shit automatically.

You are not alone. For every dorkwad who is willing to muck around with some partition utility, there are tens of thousands of consumers who have zero interest in this. Hell, most consumers aren't even inclined to upgrade their operating systems.

And how many corporate IT staffers want to diddle with this B.S.? Best practices would require a full backup of the system before the repartitioning exercise just in case something goes awry. Multiple that by hundreds (even thousands) of systems. Hell, they might be working on this when the February Patch Tuesday rolls around.

Ahahahahahahaha!!!!

Except Raymond Chen.

Well clearly his continuing presence is not enough.

So Microsoft should fire everyone but Raymond and he can work alongside the AI. Still a better chance at decent Windows releases.

But no. Whoever is in charge of Windows software engineering will probably get a promotion next month...

And remember that even if Microsoft eventually fixes this particular update (which they will), they have squandered trust.

TRUST IS EARNED.

Not just the trust of consumers. Nor the trust of corporate IT staffers. Partners, third party software developers, technology journalists, even some of their own employees.

 

[ThrashZone]

I've been using Windows for over two decades and have no intention of fucking around with my boot partition just so Microsoft can install an update that should be doing this shit automatically.


Except Raymond Chen.

Not sure it's really a boot partition
The 100-260mb efi is which is not effected by recovery partition.

 

[P4-630]

MiniTool Partition Wizard 11.5 version clean don't update

Cannot download it, I'm getting forwarded everytime and uBlock blocks it....

 

[ThrashZone]

Cannot download it, I'm getting forwarded everytime and uBlock blocks it....

Weird I wasn't block bt UB but sure was moved my bad
Here filehippo

Download older versions of MiniTool Partition Wizard for Windows - FileHippo.com

Discover all versions of MiniTool Partition Wizard for Windows. You can download every previous version of MiniTool Partition Wizard, safe and entirely free.

filehippo.com

I like the older because minitool admins started removing features in the newer.

 

[thesmokingman]

Thanks for the heads up. I checked my updates and sure enough go the error. Fired a partition tool and expanded the partition in question to 1gb and the update completed.

 

[ThrashZone]

Thanks for the heads up. I checked my updates and sure enough go the error. Fired a partition tool and expanded the partition in question to 1gb and the update completed.

Hi,
Indeed
MS should be directing people to third party partition tools instead of their bs instructions with diskpart lol

I haven't used disk genus very much but it does a lot
DiskGenius Free Edition - Free Partition Manager for Windows

 

[mb194dc]

Being an unpaid member of msft QA team never felt so good ?