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Microsoft: We are working on KB5034441/KB5034440 "0x80070643 - ERROR_INSTALL_FAILURE" fix by Sayan Sen Microsoft released the first Windows 10 and 11 Patch Tuesday updates of 2024, last week, with the January updates KB5034122 and KB5034123 respectively. The updates are meant to address security issues within Windows. The one for 11 also fixes the recent Wi-Fi troubles that led to networks not connecting or the Wi-Fi icon not showing. In a separate article, the company has also detailed a fix for a WinRE (Windows Recovery Environment) security vulnerability that can lead to BitLocker encryption bypass. The issue is being tracked under ID "CVE-2024-20666". Microsoft said that the security flaw could allow attackers to bypass BitLocker encryption if they are able to get physical access to an unpatched PC. However, this is not one of those WinRE updates that is seamlessly installing on PCs. Users report that the update is failing to install with the error message "0x80070643 - ERROR_INSTALL_FAILURE" which indicates insufficient WinRE partition size. The solution is to resize the partition manually. You can do so by following this dedicated guide here. Neowin forum supervisor / mod and ESET's Distinguished Researcher Aryeh Goretsky (X account) also experienced the issue which they were able to fix by increasing the recovery partition. Goretsky writes: Hello, I can confirm that the KB5034441 hotfix failed on a Windows 10 VM with a Windows Recovery partition that was 511MB in size. I decided to increase it to 1024MB in size, just in case more space was needed in the future. The hotfix installed normally afterwards. Regards, Aryeh Goretsky Microsoft of course has been aware of this problem almost from the start which is why it has been recommending the manual resize workaround as soon as it published the WinRE updates. Yesterday, on its Windows health dashboard, the company has added the issue and notes that a fix is coming via a future update. Microsoft says: Devices attempting to install the January 2024 Windows Recovery Environment update ( KB5034441/KB5034440) might display an error related to the size of the Recovery Environment's partition. Resulting from this error, the following message might be displayed. "0x80070643 - ERROR_INSTALL_FAILURE" Workaround: It might be necessary to increase the size of the WinRE partition in order to avoid this issue and complete the installation. Note that 250 megabytes of free space is required in the recovery partition. Guidance to change the WinRE partition size can be found in KB5028997: Instructions to manually resize your partition to install the WinRE update. Next steps: We are working on a resolution and will provide an update in an upcoming release. Aside from this BitLocker encryption vulnerability, Microsoft has recently updated its Microsoft Printer Metadata Troubleshooter Tool to patch against a Remote Code Execution (RCE) security flaw.

As Microsoft also pushes it to Windows 10, buggy Copilot puts the brakes on Windows 11 23H2 by Sayan Sen Although initially it was expected that Copilot is going to be an AI assistant exclusively for Windows 11, that changed quickly as Microsoft also introduced the feature to Windows 10. To entice those who weren't too keen about it, Microsoft explained in a lengthy blog post why users would want to have the feature even if they may feel they don't need it. Besides that, the company is also experimenting a lot with the Copilot button placement as it is now testing to see if it fits better somewhere around the corner of the screen where the Show desktop option lies. All this experimentation certainly comes at a cost as Copilot seems to be breaking one thing or the other fairly regularly, though it is sort of expected too given that the feature is pretty new. Still, users shouldn't need to be going through such experiences on non-Insider builds. Microsoft had already confirmed that Copilot can mess up desktop icons on Windows 11 as they would move unexpectedly on multi-monitor setups which is why the feature was blocked on such systems. And now that Copilot is on Windows 10, this unresolved bug, too, has invited itself there with the latest Windows 10 22H2 update (KB5032278). Aside from that, the company has also put a safeguard in place, which is essentially a compatibility hold such that these PCs will not be offered the Windows 11 23H2 update. The tech giant has also urged such users to not manually update their systems to version 23H2. On its Windows health dashboard, Microsoft writes: Windows devices using more than one (1) monitor might experience issues with desktop icons moving unexpectedly between monitors or other icon alignment issues when attempting to use Copilot in Windows (in preview). To prevent users from encountering this issue, Copilot in Windows might not be available on devices that have been used or are currently being used in a multimonitor configuration. You might also not be able to update to Windows 11, version 23H2 as we have applied a compatibility hold on devices encountering this issue. If your organization is using Windows Update for Business reports, the safeguard ID is 47615939. Note We recommend that you do not attempt to manually update to Windows 11, version 23H2 using the Update now button or the Media Creation Tool until this issue has been resolved and the safeguard removed. You may find more details about it on this page on Microsoft's official website.

Microsoft puts little blame on its Windows update after UNSUPPORTED PROCESSOR BSOD bug by Sayan Sen Update: Intel too confirms Microsoft is right not to take the blame. It has been a pretty eventful week for Microsoft and Intel in terms of major news and rumors. First up, we had the "Downfall" GDS vulnerability which affects almost all of Intel's slightly older CPUs. This was followed by a leaked Intel document which suggests upcoming Wi-Fi 7 may only be limited to Windows 11, Windows 12, and newer. Meanwhile, users of the two latest generations of Intel CPUs were affected by a Windows update issue where the system crashes with a blue screen of death (BSOD) displaying a "UNSUPPORTED_PROCESSOR" error, even though it is supposed to work perfectly. (Microsoft recently updated its support list for both Intel and AMD.) MSI, which seems to be the most commonly affected motherboard vendor out of all, published a workaround yesterday which you can find here. The problem is mainly affecting Intel's Z690 and Z790 boards, which are chipsets accompanying 12th and 13th Gen Alder Lake and Raptor Lake parts respectively. Microsoft has also updated its health dashboard page today with new information and details about the issue. Interestingly, the company says that its latest non-security preview updates, ie, Windows 11 (KB5029351) and Windows 10 (KB5029331), which seemingly triggered this Unsupported CPU BSOD error, is not really what's to blame for the error. It says that this is an issue with a "specific subset of processors": After investigating these reports, we have found that the “UNSUPPORTED_PROCESSOR” error was not caused by issues in KB5029351 and is limited to a specific subset of processors. We are collaborating with device manufacturers (OEMs) and will temporarily mitigate this issue by not offering KB5029351 to Windows devices that might be affected by this issue. If you still experience this issue, please contact your device’s processor manufacturer. If you are one of those affected, you can still provide feedback to Microsoft The company's guidance on how to properly give feedback on the issue can be found in this article. You should also contact your motherboard maker and CPU maker, which seems to be Intel at the moment.

Microsoft: Windows 10 (KB5028244) app installs via ClickOnce incorrectly nagging users by Sayan Sen Towards the end of July, Microsoft released KB5028244, its C-release non-security update for the month. The update was one which brought in multiple issues like those related to UWP and Win32, BitLocker, printers, and more. Find the full release notes of the update in its dedicated post. However, the update wasn't flawless as Microsoft confirmed a major bug that was causing video codec issues, and Windows 11 was affected too. Today, the tech giant has confirmed another bug in the update. Microsoft says that applications installed via ClickOnce are incorrectly showing as not installed. Microsoft has issued a known issue rollback for this bug. On its health dashboard, Microsoft explains the bug in detail as well as its workaround: After installing KB5028244 or later updates, apps which were deployed using ClickOnce might begin to prompt for installation even when the ClickOnce apps are already installed and marked as “trusted”. Workaround: To temporarily workaround the issue, uninstall the impacted ClickOnce Application and reinstall the application again. Resolution: This issue is resolved using Known Issue Rollback (KIR). Please note that it might take up to 24 hours for the resolution to propagate automatically to consumer devices and non-managed business devices. Restarting your Windows device might help the resolution apply to your device faster. For enterprise-managed devices that have installed an affected update and encountered this issue can be resolved by installing and configuring a special Group Policy. The special Group Policy can be found in Computer Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> . Group Policy downloads with Group Policy name: Download for Windows 10, version 22H2; Windows 10, version 21H2 - Windows 10 20H2, 21H1, 21H2 and 22H2 KB5028244 230814_02353 Feature Preview Important: You will need to install and configure the Group Policy for your version of Windows to resolve this issue. You can find the official announcement post here on the health dashboard site.

Microsoft confirms Patch Tuesday broke OneDrive on Windows 10 22H2, and more by Sayan Sen While Patch Tuesday is meant to deliver important security updates, it can often times lead to big issues elsewhere. With October's Patch Tuesday update on Windows 10, Microsoft has confirmed that OneDrive is broken, as in, it closes unexpectedly. Microsoft has described the issue in detail below alongside the affected platforms: After installing KB5018410 or later updates, OneDrive might unexpectedly close, and you might receive an error when attempting to do the following: Sign out or unlink your account in the Microsoft OneDrive sync app. Unlink sites or folders from syncing to your device from Microsoft SharePoint or Microsoft Teams sites. Uninstalling the OneDrive sync app might fail. Note: These issues might affect both OneDrive and OneDrive for Business [..] Affected platforms: Client: Windows 10, version 22H2; Windows 10, version 21H2; Windows 10, version 21H1; Windows 10, version 20H2 Server: None Microsoft, at this point in time, has not provided a solution or workaround for the issue. The company says it is investigating and expects to roll out a fix in the upcoming week. It writes: Next steps: We are working on a resolution and estimate a solution will be available in the coming week. This is the second major bug with this month's Patch Tuesday as previously, Microsoft had confirmed network issues related to TLS/SSL handshake failure.

Microsoft fixes Windows 10 chkdsk issue that corrupted disks and caused blue screens by Abhay Venkatesh Microsoft released the usual set of Patch Tuesday updates to supported Windows versions earlier this month. While the updates brought the usual bug fixes, improvements, and security patches, there were also known issues documented in the KB articles. However, one of the issues that wasn’t documented, which users began reporting (spotted by the Planet3DNow and Borncity), was that of a problem with the chkdsk error-checking utility. The bug – supposedly introduced with KB4592438 – affects Windows 10 versions 2004 and 20H2, and causes the chkdsk /f command to affect file systems adversely, resulting in blue screens (BSOD) and corruption of the file system in the worst case. The issue seemingly affects SSDs and can be reproduced even when run on a virtual machine (VM). Microsoft has now acknowledged the issue, documented a workaround, and has begun rolling out a fix. The Redmond firm has updated the list of known issues for KB4592438 and KB4586853 with a workaround for the error for those devices that are able to start up. Here are the steps that are to be performed: The device should automatically start up into the Recovery Console after failing to start up a few times. Select Advanced options. Select Command Prompt from the list of actions. Once Command Prompt opens, type: chkdsk /f Allow chkdsk to complete the scan, this can take a little while. Once it has completed, type: exit The device should now start up as expected. If it restarts into Recovery Console, select Exit and continue to Windows 10. The company adds that devices might run chkdsk after a restart once the steps are completed. As for the fix that prevents the error, it is currently being rolled out to "non-managed devices" - meaning consumers - and should propagate to all devices in the next 24 hours. It is not clear if the change is a server-side one, as there is no new KB article added to the update history. Enterprise-managed devices, however, can resolve the issue by installing and configuring a special Group Policy, which the company has provided here. Source: Microsoft (1)(2) via BleepingComputer

Microsoft posts a workaround for the 'Reset this PC' bug plaguing some Windows 10 PCs by Abhay Venkatesh Microsoft offers an in-built solution to reset a Windows 10 PC through the Settings app if users choose to do so due to a corrupt build or issues with the operating system. The tool also gives users the choice to keep their files and only reset the OS settings to factory default. However, the feature might not be working as expected for some users running Windows 10 version 2004. The company today posted a support article acknowledging the issue with the ‘Reset this PC’ feature that causes the tool to fail and prompt an error that reads “There was a problem when resetting your PC. No changes were made". The company also posted a workaround for users who are unable to use the feature and are experiencing the said error. Here is the workaround as shared by Microsoft: Open an elevated command prompt. To do this, click Start, type Command Prompt or cmd in the Search box, right-click Command Prompt, and then click Run as administrator. If you are prompted for an administrator password or for a confirmation, type the password, or click Allow Type the following command, and then press Enter: dism /online /cleanup-image /restorehealth Reboot your system, and attempt Reset this PC again. The workaround involves using the Deployment Image Servicing and Management (DISM) tool to attempt to fix the issue. However, Microsoft does not mention any timelines on when a permanent fix for the problem is expected. Interestingly, this is not the first time that the problem with the ‘Reset this PC’ feature has been acknowledged. A security update back in February introduced a similar issue and affected Windows 10 versions all the way back to version 1809. The update was then pulled by the company. While today’s documentation only mentions the May 2020 Update, it is not clear if the problem has been fixed for the earlier versions. Source: Microsoft Support via BleepingComputer

Microsoft acknowledges Windows 10 bug causing forced reboots, fix in the works by Abhay Venkatesh Microsoft has acknowledged a new issue that affects Windows 10 versions 1809 and newer that causes the Local Security Authority Subsystem Service (LSASS) to fail on some devices, forcing users to reboot the system. Though the problem was reported widely after this month’s Patch Tuesday updates, the company has acknowledged the bug in the known issues section of the KB articles for impacted versions, which also include articles for the May updates. The LSASS process is tasked with enforcing security policies on a system that verifies user logon, password changes, and more. The problem relates to a failure in the LSASS.exe file which leads to users losing access to any accounts currently active on the machine. This forces users to reboot the machine. A Microsoft Tech Community thread (spotted by BleepingComputer) detailing the problem was first posted on May 27. Image: BleepingComputer The only workaround, for now, is to uninstall the June Patch Tuesday cumulative updates, meaning that users will have to uninstall KB4561608 (1809), KB4560960 (1903 and 1909), or KB4557957 (2004). However, those that skipped the June updates and are still sporting the May patches will have to uninstall KB4551853 (1809) or KB4556799 (1903 and 1909). Users that manually installed the fixes that were rolled out last week for the printer issues will need to roll back those patches. One of the support forum responses suggests that the company intends to roll out a fix via its July Patch Tuesday updates. Microsoft says that it is working on a resolution, but has not provided any timelines for when the fix will roll out to affected versions of the OS.