Macrium shows a red partition

pietcorus2 said:

Will backup first , then delete MSR and , maybe Recovery also..................

I thought only partition 6 was unnecessary and you'd be keeping 5 partitions.

pietcorus2 said:

In Win10 only two partitions on SSD , first; OS , second; System partition 100MB ...........never problems with this .
Now on a new PC , 4 partitions ! I like to go to 2 partitions again............

C and D take up your two allotment right there

I suggest you stick with the recommended partition layout shown in https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/win...iew=windows-10 which means you'll have five partitions since you have the extra D: on the boot drive. If you want to deviate from the recommendation, be prepared to deal with any headaches later down the road that may arise.

Hopefully people giving you bunk advice to not follow the MS recommendation will be there to dig you out of any holes you fall into.

pietcorus2 said:

In Win10 only two partitions on SSD , first; OS , second; System partition 100MB ...........never problems with this .
Now on a new PC , 4 partitions ! I like to go to 2 partitions again............

With UEFI, you have to have at least two partitions (EFI, C drive partition). Thus if you want a D drive partition for data, minimum is 3 partitions.

hsehestedt said:

Additional information on this topic for those interested...

Current versions of Windows now create the Recovery partition last, immediately following the Windows partition when Windows is installed clean on the system.

NOTE: I don't recall with which Win 10 update that started, but it applies to anything current.

This configuration is also the now officially recommended configuration from Microsoft because Windows now has the unique ability to shrink the Windows partition and expand the Recovery partition DOWNWARD into the space freed when the Windows partition is shrunk when / if a Windows feature update should require more space in the Recovery partition. What this means is that you will no longer end up with multiple Recovery partitions being created over time.

Note that if you install Windows via an unattended installation, the Recovery partition will NOT be created last. To work around this, simply remove the section from the unattended answer file that specifies the location to which Windows should be installed. Setup will pause to allow you to manually select the destination. At this point, remove all partitions from the target disk and choose the unallocated space. Setup will correctly place the Windows partition and Recovery partitions as the last two partitions. The remainder of the installation will continue unattended.

I am pretty sure, the recovery partition is not reverse extended but actually deleted and a complete new one installed filling up gap made by shrinking C drive. It is semantics really as end result is the same.

hsehestedt said:

It's possible that what you say is correct, but the Microsoft documentation on the topic sure makes it sound like they are expanding the partition rather than recreating it.

see the docs here:

Windows Recovery Environment (Windows RE) | Microsoft Docs

From those docs:

The Windows RE update process makes every effort to reuse the existing Windows RE partition without any modification. However, in some rare situations where the new Windows RE image (along with the migrated/injected contents) does not fit in the existing Windows RE partition, the update process will behave as follows:

• If the existing Windows RE partition is located immediately after the Windows partition, the Windows partition will be shrunk and space will be added to the Windows RE partition. The new Windows RE image will be installed onto the expanded Windows RE partition.
• If the existing Windows RE partition is not located immediately after the Windows partition, the Windows partition will be shrunk and a new Windows RE partition will be created. The new Windows RE image will be installed onto this new Windows RE partition. The existing Windows RE partition will be orphaned.
• If the existing Windows RE partition cannot be reused and the Windows partition cannot successfully be shrunk, the new Windows RE image will be installed onto the Windows partition. The existing Windows RE partition will be orphaned.

________________

I had also read previously that this partition had the unique capability of expanding backwards, but I have not yet found where I had read that. It's possible that it works as you suggest. However, the important point is simply that the creation of multiple Recovery partitions should no longer occur.

I think it is ambiguous but in the end it is semantics, your last sentence being critical point.

pietcorus2 said:

Will backup first , then delete MSR and , maybe Recovery also..................

from,
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/win...-partition-msr