Windows 10: Enable or Disable Windows Recovery Environment in Windows 10

How to: Enable or Disable Windows Recovery Environment in Windows 10

How to Enable or Disable Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE) in Windows 10


Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE) is a recovery environment that can repair common causes of unbootable operating systems. By default, WinRE is preloaded into the Windows 10 for desktop editions (Home, Pro, Enterprise, and Education) and Windows Server 2016 installations.

WinRE includes these tools:

• Automatic repair and other troubleshooting tools. For more info, see Windows RE Troubleshooting Features.
  • System Restore
  • Startup Repair
  • Uninstall Updates
  • Command Prompt at boot
  • System Image Recovery
  • UEFI Firmware Settings
  • Go back to the previous build of Windows
  • Startup Settings (available enabled or disabled)
• Push-button reset. This tool enables your users to repair their own PCs quickly while preserving their data and important customizations, without having to back up data in advance. For more info, see Push-Button Reset Overview.
  • Refresh Windows 10
  • Reset Windows 10

This tutorial will show you how to enable or disable Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE) in advanced options at startup in Windows 10.

You must be signed in as an administrator to enable or disable WinRE.



Contents

• Option One: See Current Status of Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE)
• Option Two: Enable Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE)
• Option Three: Disable Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE)

EXAMPLE: Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE) enabled or disabled in advanced options at startup





















OPTION ONE [/i] See Current Status of Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE)
1 Open an elevated command prompt.

2 Copy and paste reagentc /info into the elevated command prompt, and press Enter. (see screenshot below)

3 Look to the right of Windows RE Status to see if it is currently Enabled or Disabled.











OPTION TWO [/i] Enable Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE)
This is the default setting.


1 Open an elevated command prompt.

2 Copy and paste reagentc /enable into the elevated command prompt, and press Enter. (see screenshot below)









OPTION THREE [/i] Disable Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE)
1 Open an elevated command prompt.

2 Copy and paste reagentc /disable into the elevated command prompt, and press Enter. (see screenshot below)





That's it,
Shawn


Related Tutorials

• How to Boot to Advanced Startup Options in Windows 10
• How to Troubleshoot Windows 10 failure to boot using Recovery Environment
• How to Enable or Disable Legacy F8 Advanced Boot Options in Windows 10
• How to Enable or Disable Automatic Repair in Windows 10
• How to Refresh Windows 10
• How to Reset Windows 10
• How to Create a Bootable USB Recovery Drive in Windows 10
• How to Create a Recovery Image used to Reset Windows 10
• Create Custom Provisioning Package used to Reset Windows 10 or Create Recovery Drive

:)

 

Unable to access Windows Recovery Environment normally

Some entries in the bcd for the recovery environment is either corrupted or missing. To fix the problem, you;d need to rebuild the entries for the recovery environment.
Here's the steps:

1. Turn on folder options to show hidden files/folders. Open admin command then type: reagentc /disable
   - This will move 2 files from the recovery partition reagent.xml and winre.wim to C:\windows\system32\recovery
2. If you have the Windows 10 ISO, double click on it to mount to a virtual cd/dvd else If you have the Windows 10 USB then navigate to Sources folder and look for install.esd or install.wim.
3. Use 7-ZIP to open install.esd or install.wim, select and index. eg. 6 then navigate to Windows\system32\recovery. You'd see 2 files: Winre.wim and reagent.xml.
4. Remove everything from C:\windows\system32\recovery (ie. your current winre.win and reagent.xml)
5. Copy the new winre.wim and reagent.xml from the install.esd/install.wim to C:\windows\system32\Recovery
6. From admin command, type: ReAgentc /enable

Reboot to recovery. This will also fix the problem with shutdown /r /o

 

Can't enable Windows Recovery Environment


OS: Windows 10 Pro 64-bit

Without WinRE I can't repair my system from the hard drive if something happens at boot, or if I need to reset my system.

This is what happens when I type reagentc /info:



It shows that WinRE is disabled.

I then typed:

Code:

Code:

    REAGENTC.EXE /setreimage /path c:\windows\system32\recovery

... which completed successfully.

The output from "reagentc /info" is unchanged though.

I can't put the WinRE environment out of the disabled state, even when I enable it successfully then try and disable it, it says it was already disabled.




Any ways to fix without a format and clean reinstall?

 

Can't enable Windows Recovery Environment

hi

OS: Windows 10 Pro 64-bit

Without WinRE I can't repair my system from the hard drive if something happens at boot, or if I need to reset my system.

This is what happens when I type reagentc /info:



And



It shows that WinRE is disabled.


Please advice me regarding this issue





Regards

 

Windows 10 Tweaks

Pressing “Windows+Pause Break” (it’s up there next to scroll lock) opens the “System” Window.

Windows 10: In the new version of Windows, Explorer has a section called Quick Access. This includes your frequent folders and recent files. Explorer defaults to opening this page when you open a new window. If you’d rather open the usual This PC, with links to your drives and library folders, follow these steps:

• Open a new Explorer window.
• Click View in the ribbon.
• Click Options.
• Under General, next to “Open File Explorer to:” choose “This PC.”
• Click OK

credit to Lifehacker.

 

Missing Recovery Environment

Hi Alan,

Here is a link containing several useful suggestions to help you recover Windows 10. Since the error message that you got tells you to insert your Windows installation or recovery media. We suggest the perform the steps listed under
Use a recovery drive to restore or reset your PC or you can also follow the steps under
Use installation media to restore or reset your PC. Please see the link below for more details:

Recovery options in Windows 10.

Regards.