Microsoft is addressing a bug in the Windows 10 Recovery Environment that has been causing issues since the end of support.
Last week, Microsoft rolled out an ESU update for Windows 10, available to those enrolled in the Extended Security Update program. The update resolves a problem with the Recovery Environment (WindowsRE) that has been known since October. Only Microsoft knows why it took this long to squash the bug.
The Recovery Environment had been broken since Microsoft ended commercial support for Windows 10 in October last year. The feature provides the ability to diagnose and fix operating system issues in a controlled environment. However, the bug caused the Recovery Environment to crash and/or rendered your mouse and keyboard unusable.
Microsoft previously attempted to fix the problem in October, but that effort failed. With the latest ESU update, the Recovery Environment has been restored.
Conditions
To install the update, several conditions apply, which Microsoft lists on its support page. First and foremost, you must be enrolled in the ESU program for Windows 10 to continue receiving security updates for the operating system. This program runs until October 2026 for home users.
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Additionally, WindowsRE must be enabled, the version must not be higher than or equal to 10.0.19041.6807, and the recovery partition must contain at least 256 MB of free space. If you do not meet the latter requirement, you can follow these instructions from Microsoft to expand the partition by 250 MB.