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Windows Office Hours: August 21, 2025
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Under what circumstances is the "Reinstall now" button in the Windows Settings app enabled?
I'm referring to the button under System > Recovery > Fix problems using Windows Update. In the past, I have tried using this feature on workstations that have their updates managed with Windows Update for Business, but the button is greyed out and it says "This option is currently unavailable". I have worked around that by adding the device to a "Windows Update for Business excluded" group which is excluded from the update ring policies, which re-enables the button.
Is there any way to keep this button enabled for WUfB-managed machines? Or some other way to initiate the reinstall (without having to package and deploy the OS installation media)?
Interestingly, I just checked on my own machine which is managed with WUfB and the button is not greyed out. I am on build 26100.5061; is this a new feature in the Release Preview channel? (I skimmed the blog posts in the Windows Blog but didn't find anything referencing this.)