Can’t Expand EFI System Partition

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Am ready to follow Susan Bradley’s instructions to install Windows 8.1 update… as soon as Woody gives the MS-DEFCON ok to patch. 1 issue, however:
She says to check the System Reserved partition & make sure it’s 350MB. The EFI System Partition on my Windows 8.1 laptop is 300MB. When I go to Disk Management & right-click on the partition, everything but Help is grayed out on the menu; including Extend Volume. I opened a command prompt & started DISKPART, listed volumes & selected the right one. When I entered ‘extend size=50’, it came back ‘You may not extend OEM, ESP, or recovery partitions’. The other partitions are NTFS, but the SYSTEM partition is FAT32.

Is there a way to either change the partition type from FAT32 to NTFS, & if not, is there a way to extend the partition to 350MB? Susan said ‘If you don’t have sufficient System Reserved space, you might have to enlarge the partition, typically with a Linux-based partition-editing tool.’. If there are no simple ways to change and/or extend the partition, could I patch without extending the EFI System Partition?

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The EFI partition on my laptop is 102MB, and I didn’t have any trouble. And the System Reserved partition is only 32MB.

The Update adds a couple of small files to the EFI partition, but I’ve still got free space in mine.

Always create a fresh drive image before making system changes/Windows updates; you may need to start over!

We all have our own reasons for doing the things that we do with our systems; we don't need anyone's approval, and we don't all have to do the same things.

We were all once "Average Users".

Computer Specs

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Agreed; My System Reserved Partition is 105MB and I am running Windows 8.1 Update after having run Windows 8, and before that Windows 7, without any hassles; (Only 13.28MB of my System Partition is used).

My Rig: AMD Ryzen 9 5900X 12-Core CPU; ASUS Cross Hair VIII Formula Mobo; Win 11 Pro (64 bit)-(UEFI-booted); 32GB RAM; 2TB Corsair Force Series MP600 Pro 2TB PCIe Gen 4.0 M.2 NVMe SSD. 1TB SAMSUNG 960 EVO M.2 NVME SSD; MSI GeForce RTX 3090 VENTUS 3X 24G OC; Microsoft 365 Home; Condusiv SSDKeeper Professional; Acronis Cyberprotect, VMWare Workstation Pro V17.5. HP 1TB USB SSD External Backup Drive). Dell G-Sync G3223Q 144Hz Monitor.

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I’ve used the Thanks button already, but I wanted to do it more verbally. Looks like I will be OK when I apply all the updates & upgrade to Win 8.1 Update. Not running the Pro version, & everything’s been fine with Win 8, 8.1 & probably will be with Win 8.1 Update (or 8.1.1 if you prefer). Looking forward to the new changes, but since I’m one of the few that actually LIKES the Start screen :eek:, will change my settings after it boots me to the desktop for the 1st time.

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@ BillIngramIsMe: Windows 8.1 Update (Windows “8.1.1”) gives you a desktop at startup that is similar to the “old” Windows 7. If you want it even more closely like that, you could always install Classic Start (or a similar program) to give you all the same options – and a few more.

My Rig: AMD Ryzen 9 5900X 12-Core CPU; ASUS Cross Hair VIII Formula Mobo; Win 11 Pro (64 bit)-(UEFI-booted); 32GB RAM; 2TB Corsair Force Series MP600 Pro 2TB PCIe Gen 4.0 M.2 NVMe SSD. 1TB SAMSUNG 960 EVO M.2 NVME SSD; MSI GeForce RTX 3090 VENTUS 3X 24G OC; Microsoft 365 Home; Condusiv SSDKeeper Professional; Acronis Cyberprotect, VMWare Workstation Pro V17.5. HP 1TB USB SSD External Backup Drive). Dell G-Sync G3223Q 144Hz Monitor.

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Windows 8.1 Update (Windows “8.1.1”) gives you a desktop at startup that is similar to the “old” Windows 7. If you want it even more closely like that, you could always install Classic Start (or a similar program) to give you all the same options – and a few more.

Thanks, but as I said, I actually LIKE the Win 8.1 Start screen & Not looking to be on the desktop unless in Firefox. If Microsoft really fixes the IE 0day problem, will probably go back to IE as my default… but customized Firefox does some cool things with the right add-ons.

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