Questions re: Expanding System Partition, Shrinking Windows Partition

Hello Everyone,

Hopefully I'm not duplicating a thread I haven't found. I'm running Windows Home v. 1803, Build 17134.829 on a Lenovo IdeaPad laptop. Windows Update failed to install the July CU (KB4507435) for v. 1803 with error code 0x800f0922 (possible cause: too-small system partition). This is the first time I've received this code so checked size of system partition and saw it is only 260 MB (screenshot follows):




This is the disk organization as provided by Lenovo; as you can see I have lots of free space but no unallocated space. If I need unallocated space to expand the system partition, I'll have to get it by shrinking the Windows partition. I have a few questions about this procedure:

1. Are there any special considerations for shrinking the Windows partition, e.g., defrag the disk first?
2. Must the unallocated space reside immediately next to the system partition to be considered contiguous? If shrinking the Windows partition places the unallocated space anywhere else, will I need a third-party disk management tool to enlarge the system partition?

I'm sure I'll need to resolve this before trying to update to v. 1903, which is now being offered, and I'll have to do the same to my husband's HP (don't want to mess up that one), so really need to have my ducks in a row before getting started.

Thanks in advance for your help.

EFI partition only has the boot loader and may have some Lenovo tools. 100M is normally what you need. You have 260M and it's 100% free so I don't think EFI System partition is the one giving you the problem.
Have a look at this Tech Support: Windows 10 Update with Error Code 0x800F0922 – EaseUS

Error Code 0x800F0922 in Windows 10 update refers to an error with the downloading problem with the newest update of Windows 10. It also means that low System Reserved partition space is left for loading new system or the system fails to connect to Windows Update server.

My suggestion is to download the 1903 iso file to the computer, mount the iso and run setup.
This is a link from M$ Win10_1903_V1_English_x64.iso
The link is valid for 24 hours

If the is a problem with insufficient free space within the system reserved partition it may be able to be fixed by:
a) temporarily or permanently removing files
b) modifying the partition size

Run setupdiag > post a share link into the thread using one drive, drop box, or google drive
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/win...rade/setupdiag

Thanks, Megahertz and zbook. Your posts pointed out the difference between an EFI partition and a Microsoft reserved system partition, which my disk obviously doesn't have; as I've never had this species of WU problem before, I started to think that the partition size issue might not apply to this situation. Then at some point tonight WU downloaded the CU again. The first download of the update had caused the system to go to sleep within minutes of not being used, ignoring my settings. This download didn't do that. I wondered if perhaps the first download had contained some bad files, so I tried the installation again, but with one difference--I disabled my antivirus before restarting. It ran successfully the second time, so I guess there's no problem with the disk's partitions after all.
I appreciate your quick response and suggestions. Thanks again.

You are welcome.

Once you have the disk drive setup with your preferences consider making a backup image.

There are free and pay versions depending on the features.

(Acronis, Aoemi, EaseUS, Macrium, Paragon, etc.)

Macrium is widely used in Ten Forums:
Macrium Software | Your Image is Everything

Backup and Restore with Macrium Reflect

zbook said:

Once you have the disk drive setup with your preferences consider making a backup image.

There are free and pay versions depending on the features.

(Acronis, Aoemi, EaseUS, Macrium, Paragon, etc.)

Macrium is widely used in Ten Forums:
Macrium Software | Your Image is Everything

Backup and Restore with Macrium Reflect

I'm still using Windows system image for this; it's worked fine for me, but since apparently the writing is on the wall for this option, I'm planning to switch to Macrium since so many of you folks endorse it.