Windows RE tools partition

[Froggie]

This happens quite often during Windows upgrades.  When Windows finds the existing Recovery Partition to be too small to accommodate a WindowsRE.wim image update, it shrinks the OS partition by the amount needed to create a new, larger Recovery partition... creates and assigns the new Recovery partition, and winds up orphaning the old Recovery partition.  The result: a new registered Recovery Partition, a completely orphaned old Recovery partition, and a new shrunk OS partition.

This Windows "operation" always changes the geometry of existing automatic imaging tasks, and as a result either makes the task fail or forces a new, unexpected FULL image to reflect the new partition geometry.

The way I have solved it is to make your existing Recovery partition much larger (I use 2-gB)... that way Windows will always (at least for the forseeable future) find enough room in that partition for any WindowsRE.wim changes required for any update/upgrade.

Strange, why doesn't Microsoft directly expand the recovery partition after shrinking the OS partition, instead of creating a new recovery partition?

The problem is... if it's a pure MicroSloth build, the RE partition is always last and if there's any room beyond that partition when the change is made, no problem, a simple RE partition extension to the right (free disk space).  If it's an OEM build, many OEMs place their own "recovery/diagnostic" partitions after the Windows RE partition.  This doesn't let Windows do a simple RE expansion to accommodate the change.  Their only solution is to manipulate partitions that they they control... in this case, RE and the OS partition that it's next to.

I have never seen the case where the OS partition is only shrunk for the needed additional RE space... when that is needed, they create an entirely new RE out of shrunk OS space and reregister the RE partition accordingly.

The mention of doing that operation then deleting the old RE partition I have also never seen... although I can't say for a fact that it has never been done by MicroSloth.