Has anyone else done a clean install of Windows 2004? I noticed that it creates only a 50 MB hidden partition at the start of the HD and that is not enough for the Windows Backup. Does anyone have any tips? (other than manually resize the partition back to 500 MB)
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I know they were messing around with some of the Windows recovery options. They probably got rid of the option that would use the copy there, and replaced it with one that will download it from Microsoft.
Well I just used a Virtual Machine to fresh install the Windows 20.04 ISO I downloaded at the end of May. I used a 256G virtual HD and this was the result of the default partitioning, the same as always for me:
So my first question is if your machine is EFI. That’s all I use with VMs any more. Also, how big is the disk you’re using? Perhaps it’s small and Windows is doing something to conserve space? Also, which version of Windows? This is Windows 10 Pro 2004.
This has been the default for Windows 10 and Server 2016/2019 for a long time now. I’ve never really thought about it and never had any problems with it, I’ve just accepted the defaults.
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This was from going to Media Creation Tool and running it - making an ISO, booting off the ISO and doing a FRESH install - deleting all partitions. System Reserve 50MB. I use 60 GB SSDs all the time for testing machines and it always did 100 mb for Windows / 579MB for Windows 10 1909
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You still have the 505MB recovery partition at the end. The 50MB is the boot partition. It’s probably coded to make it smaller for smaller devices or something.
Normally I wouldn’t care, but I am a regular user of Windows Backup {Backup and Restore (Windows 7)} and that does not work if the System Reserve partition at the start of the drive is less that 100 MB.
Googling seems useless, but I found this, although its dated 2017:
which says:
I didn’t recognize the MSR acronym at first but its Microsoft Reserved Partition.
Of course this is minimially useful, as we already know it seems to want to do 50 or 100 under different circumstances.
There are linked articles, one has a script to use from the Windows PreBoot Environment to do the partitioning, so I presume you could use it if you were desperate for a solution:
Search for this section for more info and numerous cautions:
One thing from all of this is that it keeps mentioning 4 partitions and I only have 3 now, so it seems pretty clear that something has changed over time, merging the system partition with the MSR or something. Although I just looked back at the image, and the last partition is named 4, so perhaps there is a hidden partition or something… they sure don’t make this intuitive.
Probably completely unconnected but I have found new partitions on some of my devices/drives. Tracked it down to Acronis making its own partition on the drives if it was installed on the OS or used for recovery image to a new drive. I tested deleting them and all seemed fine(I am not recommending doing this!) I never looked into it further. Saying this on my dual boot systems Windows kept trying to take over the boot from Linux. Windows has now been banished to its own drive and soon to live in a VM. Force feeding Edge and making it non uninstallable shows the type of company they are. I suppose it is easier than actually putting effort in to making a browser people actually want. I did the reg edit to block the force feeding. Anyway, I digress and have now finished channeling Paul Thurrott 
Something I bought once came with a free license of Acronis. I didn’t know anything about it, but figured it was worth a try. When I found it involved with my PC’s booting, I decided right quick this is not software I need in my life. I get that it somehow wanted to make whole disk images or something, but messing with my PC’s boot without a CLEAR indication is not happening.
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