Some Windows users who tried to install the January 2024 security updates for their devices received the error 0x80070643 Error Install Failure during the process.

Microsoft provided background information and a workaround for affected users. According to Microsoft, the issue is caused by a lack of Windows Recovery Environment partition disk space. The solution that Microsoft offers at the time is to run several commands to increase the size of the partition.

Not all users affected by the issue want to delete and recreate partitions on their devices. Things may go wrong and this can lead to a system that can not be booted anymore. Our advice is to try a reboot of the system first to see if the update installs fine afterwards. If that is not the case, you should create a full system backup of the computer's main hard drive before attempting Microsoft's solution.

Another option is to wait for Microsoft to release a working fix that does not require partition operations.

Microsoft has confirmed the issue officially now. It added The January 2024 Windows RE update might fail to install to the list of known issues for Windows 10 version 22H2. The issue affects Windows 11 version 21H2 installations and Windows Server 2022 installations as well.

Newer versions of Windows 11, particularly Windows 11 version 22H2 and 23H2, are not listed by Microsoft as affected. Windows 11 version 21H2 is no longer supported on Home devices.

Microsoft writes on the Windows 10 version 22H2 release health dashboard: "Devices attempting to install the January 2024 Windows Recovery Environment update ( KB5034441) might display an error related to the size of the Recovery Environment's partition. The Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE) is used to repair or recover from issues affecting Windows. Resulting from this error, the following message might be displayed. "0x80070643 - ERROR_INSTALL_FAILURE""

The only workaround at the time of writing is to resize the partition manually. Microsoft says that the recovery partition needs to increase in size by at least 250 megabytes. Some users reported that they ran into the issue with larger recovery partitions. They increased the size further to resolve the error.

Microsoft is working on a resolution and promises to release a fix in an upcoming release.

Affected users have two options: resize the recovery partition to resolve the issue or wait for Microsoft to release a fix in a coming update.

Now You: did you run into the error when installing the update? (via Neowin)