Windows 10 update KB5034441 is still broken, more than a month after release

Same with Server 2022, tried it just now.

1710272335039.png
 
Same here on two installations of Windows 10 21H2 LTSC (one physical and one virtual)
 
M76 said:
View attachment 635957

During the January update round MS issued a security update for Windows 10 that should fix a security issue which could allow an attacker to bypass Bitlocker encryption using the Windows Recovery Environment. Except the update throws an unexplained error code for many users: 0x80070643. As it turns out the error is caused by MS changing how WinRE is updated from now on: cumulative updates instead of small patches. Except for many users when they originally installed Windows 10, the installer was not prepared for this so the automatically created Recovery partition is not large enough to apply this update out of no fault of their own.

Since then MS has issued a manual workaround for installing the update. But the workaround involves resizing your system and recovery partitions, so it is only recommended if you are desperate to have this update installed and know what you are doing.

Most people were hoping that in the February patch Tuesday MS would sort out the issue properly, but unfortunately that's doesn't seem to be the case. The erroneous patch hasn't been pulled and no updated version was issued. It is unclear when can we expect MS to properly fix the issue instead of a workaround that is risky even for enthusiasts.

Until now the issue was a mere inconvenience, but since you can't opt out of the broken update even if you don't use Bitlocker, it can interfere with the installation of any further updates as well, as it tries to install it first, but fails blocking the entire update process.

Windows 10 KB5034441 is still broken with 0x80070643 error
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I fix this by running the windows update troubleshooter. Many work computers.
 
M76 said:
Just because you don't encounter something doesn't mean the problem is not widespread. You can't do an in-place upgrade if you are already on the latest version of windows. Also not sure if that would be a guaranteed fix.

I have had the same issue with multiple mice, and it's not that the mouse is moving on its own or drifting (I'd cut my wrists if the $200 mouse was drifting). The mouse itself goes to sleep mode, so it is out of the question that's the problem. The only way I can get the monitor to properly time out is if I disable the ability in device manager for the mouse to wake up the computer. I couldn't even manually put the computer to sleep before I did this, as it would just immediately wake up again.
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I used to have this problem with an x99 motherboard but it went away with am4.
 
pendragon1 said:
sure
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Not sure, fact. Even after installing KB5034843, KB5034441 still shows up and gives an error. So it neither supersedes the update, neither does it fix the issue preventing KB5034441 from installing.
 
M76 said:
Not sure, fact. Even after installing KB5034843, KB5034441 still shows up and gives an error. So it neither supersedes the update, neither does it fix the issue preventing KB5034441 from installing.
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sure



what ive found on the units ive done, this update works fine if its a fresh new install of windows. if you have an oem system with their install, it tends to fail. ive also have seen it completely skipped.... either way, if its failing on you, just ignore it, not the big of a deal in the first place.
 
pendragon1 said:
sure



what ive found on the units ive done, this update works fine if its a fresh new install of windows. if you have an oem system with their install, it tends to fail. ive also have seen it completely skipped.... either way, if its failing on you, just ignore it, not the big of a deal in the first place.
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I had this update fail on a fresh install i did for windows 10 pro this week. Mind you the install media usb image im using is prob a 6+ year old version of windows if that matters. I did the recovery partition resize and that didnt fix it so i just installed w11 instead lol
 
motqalden said:
I had this update fail on a fresh install i did for windows 10 pro this week. Mind you the install media usb image im using is prob a 6+ year old version of windows if that matters. I did the recovery partition resize and that didnt fix it so i just installed w11 instead lol
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yeah 6+ is a little old...
i guess thats one way around it. lol
 
It seems Microsoft's solution to the problem is to just ignore it exists.
And I ran out of patience so I hidden the update.
 
M76 said:
It seems Microsoft's solution to the problem is to just ignore it exists.
And I ran out of patience so I hidden the update.
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Seems to be their way of thinking since they pushed 10 out the door. Maybe 8 but I'm not familiar with their update strategy there.
 
I have so many machines that fail to do this update but similarly a bunch that can.
I’ve given up on trying to see what is or isn’t the cause. I still think it has something to do with the OS install drive itself. As machines with good NVME or SSD drives don’t have the issue but cheap ones do. But that seems too arbitrary to be accurate and it is 100% anecdotal, but it’s the best I’ve come up with it may have something to do with hardware bitlocker support not sure. In any event replacing the storage with a newer better one (usually larger while I’m at it) and rebuilding with Win 11 is my approach and so far it hasn’t failed me yet.
 
I have two good m.2 drives that won't install this update...
wd black 850x m.2 and crucial p5 m.2
I think I've seen what the issue is with it failing on my pc , the path to the recover disk can't be
found.... when I do a reagentc /enable , it says image not found... eventhough I can see it ,
so, just decided to hide it for now
 
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/ne...indows-0x80070643-errors-manual-fix-required/

Microsoft has confirmed that it won't provide an automated fix for a known issue causing 0x80070643 errors when installing recent Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE) updates.
The problematic updates were issued during the January 2024 Patch Tuesday to fix CVE-2024-20666, a BitLocker encryption bypass vulnerability that allows attackers to access encrypted data.
The issue impacts Windows 10 21H2/22H2 (KB5034441), Windows 11 21H2 (KB5034440), and Windows Server 2022 (KB5034439).
On affected systems, it mistakenly shows generic '0x80070643 - ERROR_INSTALL_FAILURE' error messages instead of the correct CBS_E_INSUFFICIENT_DISK_SPACE error on systems with a Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE) partition that's too small for the update to install.
Microsoft first acknowledged this known issue in January, days after widespread reports from Windows users of 0x80070643 errors and the installation failing.
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Lakados said:
In all fairness would you trust Microsoft to automatically repartition your drives to expand out the one volume and not fuck over the rest?
I would fear an automated fix.
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They do this all the time anyway. I'm not quite sure when it happens, but I assume during release upgrades (Win 10 21H2 -> 22H2, etc.)

I have repeatedly noticed that partitions on my windows drives were automatically moved around and different sizes than they used to be, but I never tied it to any specific event, so while I know Microsoft has no qualms about doing this, I don't know exactly as part of what operation they do it.

I had this issue way back when it first occurred.

I just shrunk my data partition a little and increased the recovery partition a little bit (utilizing GParted from a linux live USB image) and the update installed just fine.

I was annoyed that I had to do this, and annoyed that I was losing disk space to the recovery partition, but it is what it is.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
Apparently Microsoft doesn't think they can fix it, which is odd, because resizing a partition really isn't that challenging:

https://www.neowin.net/news/microso...0-kb5034441-0x80070643---errorinstallfailure/

Sounds more like they just want people to switch to Windows 11, and want to make living with Windows 10 as difficult as possible.
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It’s not super challenging, but depending on the machine the storage type, the amount of free space, what they may or may not have running when those updates are running, it could get messy. For you or me or anybody else who manages to find this post, it’s a relatively trivial task.
For the average Windows user and god help them the below average Windows user, that could go very sideways very fast.
I can see it now, thousands of users who had an expired Norton install paired with a free AVG install on some cheap SSD and too little ram with god only knows what 3’rd party apps running in the background letting Microsoft automatically repartition the drive to do an update.
If that’s not a recipe for an unbootable system then I don’t know what is.
 
Lakados said:
It’s not super challenging, but depending on the machine the storage type, the amount of free space, what they may or may not have running when those updates are running, it could get messy. For you or me or anybody else who manages to find this post, it’s a relatively trivial task.
For the average Windows user and god help them the below average Windows user, that could go very sideways very fast.
I can see it now, thousands of users who had an expired Norton install paired with a free AVG install on some cheap SSD and too little ram with god only knows what 3’rd party apps running in the background letting Microsoft automatically repartition the drive to do an update.
If that’s not a recipe for an unbootable system then I don’t know what is.
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While that is true, I guess my take is, I have noticed Microsoft rooting around on my drive, resizing the main partition, creating recovery and other reserved partitions that didn't used to be there and generally messing with things.

So, I feel like they are already doing this. How much riskier would it be to do it for this one patch?
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
While that is true, I guess my take is, I have noticed Microsoft rooting around on my drive, resizing the main partition, creating recovery and other reserved partitions that didn't used to be there and generally messing with things.

So, I feel like they are already doing this. How much riskier would it be to do it for this one patch?
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The nature of this one is working specifically with encrypted drives. I’m not sure I would risk that real time, I’d probably remove the bitlocker encryption change the partition then re-enable the bitlocker.

Lots of consumer machines out there came with Bitlocker auto enabled paired with hardware it really shouldn’t have been.

Made even worse if they are using something with a TPM 1.1 chip and not a 2.0 chip. Nah, if I was on the Microsoft side I wouldn’t risk pushing that out automatically it’s a class action just waiting to happen.

The PR problems from “we can’t patch this automatically” are far easier to navigate than “Windows update bricking your PC and destroying your data”.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
Apparently Microsoft doesn't think they can fix it, which is odd, because resizing a partition really isn't that challenging:

https://www.neowin.net/news/microso...0-kb5034441-0x80070643---errorinstallfailure/

Sounds more like they just want people to switch to Windows 11, and want to make living with Windows 10 as difficult as possible.
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It affects W11 too. They just don't want to take responsibiilty for their F up. It's far easier to tell users you are on your own, risk is yours, than releasing a fix that might cause data loss. I bet you 50 cents they made the tool to fix it long ago, just decided not to publish it.
 
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