KB5042321: Windows Recovery Environment update for Windows 11, version 21H2: January 9, 2024

IMPORTANTThis update will not be offered if your Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE) meets any of the following conditions:

• If the WinRE recovery partition does not have sufficient free space, see the NOTE in the “Summary” section. The note provides instructions about how to increase the available free space in the WinRE recovery partition.
• If the WinRE recovery partition was manually updated by using the procedure in Add an update package to Windows RE and is already up to date.
• If the WinRE image has a version greater than or equal to version 10.0.22000.2710. To determine the version of your WinRE image, check theWinREVersionregistry value atHKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion.
• If your running PC does not have a WinRE recovery partition. To verify if you have WinRE enabled, run the following command in an elevated command prompt: reagentc /info. If WinRE is enabled, you will seeWindows RE statusin the output with a value ofEnabled. In this scenario, this update might be needed.

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Change log

• Updated the WinRE version to greater than or equal to version 10.0.22000.2710. August 13, 2024|

• Moved this content from update KB5034440 which has been retired.

• Added content to point to the NOTE in the “Summary” section about how to increase the available free space in the WinRE recovery partition.

• Updated the “Summary” section to remove unneeded information about the CVE.
  July 9, 2024|

• Added the IMPORTANT note at the top of the article. This note combines the conditions under which this WinRE update is not needed and will not be offered.

• Revised the NOTE in the “Summary” section about how to increase the WinRE recovery partition to 250 MB of free space.

Summary

This update automatically applies Safe OS Dynamic Update (KB5034236) to the Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE) on a running PC. The update installs improvements to Windows recovery features.NOTE This update requires 250 MB of free space in the recovery partition to install successfully.If you would like to make sure your device is offered this update, please follow the Instructions to manually resize your partition or use a sample script to increase the size of the WinRE recovery partition.Once your partition has sufficient disk space, clickStart>Settings>Windows Update>Check for updates to have the update offered to you and then install it.

How to get this update

References

Description of the standard terminology that is used to describe Microsoft software updates