"Feature updates" versus System Reserved Partition?

[gerwin]

At work I need to put Windows 10 on some older Hardware. Z68 Chipset based. BIOS and MBR config. SATA SSD 500 or 1000 GB. 8 to 16GB RAM.

I already had a test setup for it, from 2020 already, with Windows 10 installed from CD with some unfinished SysPrep intentions.

Decided to connect it to the internet and let Windows Update run. Unfortunately, The 21H2 Feature update repeatedly failed. It is detailed as error 0xc1900200, Which may mean that the system requirements are not met.

Now I suspect it is because back in 2020 I did not let it create a "System Reserved Partition". Thinking; Such dependency would just complicate the backup and imaging of the OS. I am not sure though if that is the sole reason. Windows recovery "bootcfg" failed too, saying "access denied".

So instead I made a 22H2 install media on USB stick, and installed it like that. This works and runs, but the partitions are unchanged afterwards. so again no System Reserved Partition. No complaints from Windows setup about that (just the usual Windows 10 silly questions and remarks, styled as if the computer is a person now).

On one hand I think I should retry and make such a partition in some way. On the other hand I read here that 22H2 is the last feature update, in which case I don't really need to ever do a feature update again, and I can just as well leave it alone.

 

[gerwin]

Small update on this:

That same 22H2 install media on USB stick, when booted from it, then selecting install and pointing it to an existing partition. It failed. Says the system partition is too small. (There was no system partition). So in this 22H2 installer they added a check, which was absent in version 1903. But the check was bypassed in the scenario of my previous post.

Either way, I kinda gave up in trying to keep Windows 10 portable and backed-up as a single partition. Just give it a 1TB unformatted SSD, let Windows 10 setup format that SSD how it wants it. Then afterwards split the main data partition in two parts, to my own liking. Do some software installation and configuration. Let things update. Then keep that whole SSD as a "reference", and copy it over to the exact same bunch of 1TB SSDs. With Harddisk cloning software. Then fight a bit tho get these bootable again. Then enter the MS product keys for each final system.