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

IMPORTANT This 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 10.0.19041.3920. To determine the version of your WinRE image, see the "Methods to verify the WinRE version installed" section.
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 see Windows RE status in the output with a value of Enabled. In this scenario, this update might be needed.

Change date	Change description
August 14, 2024	Updated the WinRE version to greater than or equal to version 10.0.19041.3920.
August 13, 2024	Moved this content from update KB5034441 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 (KB5034232) 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, click Start > Settings > Windows Update > Check for updates to have the update offered to you and then install it.

How to get this update

This update is available through the following release channels.

Release Channel	Available
Windows Update	Yes
Microsoft Update Catalog	No
Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) and Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager	No

Prerequisites	The PC must have 250 MB of free space in the recovery partition to apply this update successfully.
Restart information	You do not need to restart your device after applying this update.
Removal information	This update cannot be removed once it is applied to a Windows image.
Update replacement information	This update replaces the previously released update KB5034441.
Verify the installation of this update	After installing this update, the WinRE version installed on the device should greater than or equal to version 10.0.19041.3920.

Methods to verify the WinRE version installed

WinREAgent logs events related to the Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE), primarily recording details about the creation, modification, and usage of the recovery image. In this case, we are looking for Event ID: 4501 Servicing succeeded events. If you are unsuccessful in locating WinREAgent servicing events because of space limitations that might occur in your environment, we suggest you use the DISM command.

Open the Windows Search bar. To do this, right-click Start and then click Search.
In the Search bar, type Event Viewer and then click Event Viewer.
Expand Windows Logs and then click System.
In the right-side navigation pane, under Actions, click Find.
In the Find what: box, type WinREAgent and then click Find Next.
Click Cancel to close the Find dialog box. The WinREAgent servicing event should be shown in the bottom middle pane and you should see a message similar to the followng on the General tab:

Servicing succeeded. The Windows Recovery Environment version is now: 10.0.22621.4742

The WinRE version in this example is 10.0.22621.4742.
To view the Event Properties pane for the WinREAgent servicing event, right-click the WinREAgent entry in the System pane (top middle pane) and then click Event Properties.

Open an elevated Windows command prompt. To do this, press the Windows key, type cmd, right-click Command Prompt, and then click Run as Administrator.
At the command prompt, type reagentc /info and then press Enter.
Note the path of the Windows RE location. For this example, the location is \\?\GLOBALROOT\device\harddisk0\partition5\Recovery\WindowsRE. This path may vary based on your Windows installation.
At the command prompt, use the DISM command to retrieve the Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE) information. For this example, enter the following command and then press Enter:

Dism /Get-ImageInfo /ImageFile:\\?\GLOBALROOT\device\harddisk0\partition5\Recovery\WindowsRE\winre.wim /index:1

Note The default name for the WinRE image file is winre.wim. In your environment, the name of the WinRE image file might be different. Also, the Index number of the default winre.wim file is 1. In your environment, the Index number might be different.
The WinRE image file information is returned as illustrated in the following example: The WinRE version in this example is 10.0.22621.4742.