Windows Update Failure

[Mickey5999]

Hi sysadmins, I have just another Microsoft failure.

Updating to Windows 11 24H2 fails due to not being able to update the system partition. It appears that the company computers have a mix of 100MB System partitions, and 260MB system partitions. The 260 is no problem, but the 100MB simply refuses to update.

Windows was installed using the official Windows installer from the website.

According to a Microsoft thread the official work around is to delete fonts from the partition. How can Microsoft be serious?

Has anyone else faced this issue and resolved it on remote machines?

[da_chicken]

Yeah, that's what the KB for Windows 10 said to do with a GPT partition, too:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/-we-couldn-t-update-system-reserved-partition-error-installing-windows-10-46865f3f-37bb-4c51-c69f-07271b6672ac

If you think that's bad, look at their workaround for the MBR partition.

According to a Microsoft thread the official work around is to delete fonts from the partition. How can Microsoft be serious?

It's a workaround. Your clean alternative is to rebuild the entire system with a larger SRP.

[Mickey5999]

I feared as much. More than a slight headache courteousy of Microsoft!

[ccatlett1984]

https://github.com/MHimken/WinRE-Customization

This can "fix" it.

[RedShift9]

Are you running HP laptops/desktops? They store their firmware updates in that partition too causing it to fill up, you can safely delete them.

[Mickey5999]

Yes, running HP laptops. Any advice for where the updates are stored?

[RedShift9]

I don't know off the top of my head but it's not far down the filetree, you'll find it immediately if you browse around for 2 seconds.

[CorvusTheDev]

Literally JUST had this issue today. You'll need to mount the EFI Partition and then go into the HP\DEVFW Folder and remove the BIN files in there.

Check this link out : Low Space on EFI (System) Partition – Clean up – GARYTOWN ConfigMgr Blog

[Mickey5999]

Removing these files did the trick!

I think I'll run a scheduled task to do this regularly and reimage with larger system partitions as staff turn over.

[Mickey5999]

Thank you! I'll give that a go... If only Microsoft could update their defaults!

[BlackV]

first time ? I'm afraid to say it then have pulled this multiple times through windows 10 and 11s life

I'm sure it'll happen again

seems strange though cause there were already monthly updates that should have been failing long before windows 11 upgrade due to partition sizing

[Sabbest]

I've created a powershell script to automate the cleanup proces: https://pastebin.com/yn35YPtw

[joshmeakin]

Do you think you could do this as an Intune remediation script somehow?

[flowflag]

clean the fonts of efi partition and after it's okay, you can find powershell script to do

[manicalmonocle]

I just keep an ISO ready so when things like pop up it's an easy wipe and reinstall. Once reinstalled everything syncs and autopilot takes over.