Recovery Partition size increase

[Marius_Roma]

I made some tests in my lab environment by upgrading a Windows 10 VM to Windows 11.

I noticed that during the upgrade the size of the Recovery Partition increases, causing a change in the layout of Disk 0.

This causes a problem with my backup application (Veeam Agent for Microsoft Windows) that reports a change in the disk layout and performs a full backup instead of the usual incremental backup.

I noticed the same problem on a physical Windows 10 PC.

Is it a standard behavior or have I made any mistake?

It that behavior documented anywhere?

Is there any way to force maintaining the current size of the Recovery Partition during the upgrade?

Regards

[#2]

I noticed this change, too. There are only one recovery partition on Windows 10. Now, it is two partitions (One EFI System Partition and one Recovery Partition) after upgrading to Windows 11.

[#3 · Accepted solution]

Yes, it is standard behavior for the Recovery Partition to increase in size during a Windows upgrade. The reason for this is that Windows creates a special version of the Windows recovery environment that corresponds to the specific version of Windows being installed or upgraded. This recovery environment is stored in the Recovery Partition, and its size can vary depending on the version of Windows and other factors.

[#4]

@Dickesbach  Could this be the reason why I cannot create a Recovery Disk with Windows 10?

I follow the instructions, select the "backup system files to Recovery" using a 32GB, 128GB and now a 256GB USB drive and everytime I make an attempt, it fails, with no reason.