Bitlocker and increasing size of WinRE partition -- need to decrypt?

I need to increase the size of my WinRE partition in order to accommodate a recent fix for a Bitlocker vulnerability. I've seen a couple of Microsoft scripts that will automate the process, and also some posts on using Minitool. None of them state whether or not I need to either decrypt the drive first or suspend Bitlocker. Some users say I do.

Do I need to do one or the other, or will this process proceed without difficulty if I do not change Bitlocker settings.

System is running Windows 11 Pro.

Thanks!

Yes I think you should deactivate bitlocker before.

Don't use minitool partition wizard 12.8 this version has a bug, the recovery partition will be raw.

Use portable easeus: Portable Partition Manager Download | With Guide

Thank, I was planning on using either the EASUS tool or the Microsoft script.

Do you mean to "suspend" bitlocker or to actually decrypt the drive and then re-encrypt? The latter if fairly time-consuming, so I'd prefer to avoid it unless it is really necessary.

Try suspend before then after decrypt if suspend doesn't work. You should get a message “Windows RE cannot be enabled on a volume with BitLocker Drive Encryption enabled.” when you are going to type the reagentc /enable command.

In addition to my first post: from Windows disk manager you first reduce the c: partition, then with easeus portable you enlarge the recovery partition to the left. Before that disable the recovery partition. In command admin type: reagentc /disable
When everything is finished type: reagentc /enable
Then bcdboot /bcdclean

itsme1 said:

Try suspend before then after decrypt if suspend doesn't work. You should get a message “Windows RE cannot be enabled on a volume with BitLocker Drive Encryption enabled.” when you are going to type the reagentc /enable command.

In addition to my first post: from Windows disk manager you first reduce the c: partition, then with easeus portable you enlarge the recovery partition to the left. Before that disable the recovery partition. In command admin type: reagentc /disable
When everything is finished type: reagentc /enable
Then bcdboot /bcdclean

Okay, thanks for fleshing out the details.

dbookbinder said:

I need to increase the size of my WinRE partition in order to accommodate a recent fix for a Bitlocker vulnerability. I've seen a couple of Microsoft scripts that will automate the process, and also some posts on using Minitool. None of them state whether or not I need to either decrypt the drive first or suspend Bitlocker. Some users say I do.

Do I need to do one or the other, or will this process proceed without difficulty if I do not change Bitlocker settings.

System is running Windows 11 Pro.

Thanks!

Just a heads up, it is a hard thing to understand, bitlocker's concepts and to which you should note that, there is a chance you may break bitlocker if you resize a disk partition. If you have to absolutely shrink or extend a partition I highly suggest you fully decrypt bitlocker and then resize and restart the encrypt. I have done that once and Bitlocker messed up on me. The partition became RAW. Most of the time you would not be able to resize the disk if it was encrypted with BDE.