New(er) Windows Quick Recovery Does Not Work

Has anyone been successful in using the newer Quick Recovery Mode option in Windows RE? Last night I had a boot issue. Windows, as expected, went into RE. For the first time, I selected the Quick Recovery Mode. It went to a "connecting to network" message for a little while and then prompted me to select a network SSID and enter the password. I selected my SSID and entered the password only to be immediately greeted with a "failed to connect." I tried a few more times before giving up. I ended up reverting to a recent Hasleo backup.

A few minutes ago I read about testing with Recovery Test Mode. I just completed a test and it also failed to connect. Is there something else I need to do to allow Quick Recovery Mode to connect to the Internet and attempt repairs. Admittedly, I don't recall it's predecessor, "Startup Repair" from being particularly effective either...but the new Internet-based version is useless for me now.

The last time I checked, the SSID feature is broken. You can try plugging in the Ethernet, and see if the feature works without Wi-Fi support.

Enable or Disable Quick Machine Recovery in Windows 11

I'm guessing if it's similar to Safe Mode then WiFi won't be enabled due to minimal services for trouble shooting so you'd need Ethernet to use networking.

Microsoft's docs use Wi-Fi as an example, so you would think they made it work. Half baked...

Currently, quick machine recovery is supported on Windows 11 Home, Pro, Education and Enterprise SKUs, with connectivity over Ethernet and Wi-Fi (WPA/WPA2). Support for additional editions, including Windows Server, as well as expanded connectivity options for enterprise environments is coming soon. Future enhancements will also include advanced IT admin tools for remediation management, monitoring, additional policy and rollout controls.

Click to expand...

The following XML file example configures quick machine recovery with the following settings:

• The Wi-Fi network has an SSID ContosoWiFi and a password ContosoWiFiPassword
• Cloud remediation is enabled (state="1")
• Auto remediation is enabled (state="1")
  • The totalwaittime is set to 2,400 minutes (40 hours) and the waitinterval is set to 120 minutes (2 hours). Once configured, the system waits for 40 hours before rebooting, and it checks for remediation every 2 hours

Click to expand...

Windows 11 has a new feature to automatically recover your computer from a boot failure, and here's how to set it up.

Thanks all. Unfortunately, I do have Pro and that may be part of the problem. I just tried the *.xml method to enable and it wasn't successful.

- Freebooter...thanks for your post...your video matches up with a Microsoft article I found. FrancoDT...I also found a note that alludes to what you say that wi-fi may not be ready yet...maybe I'll try wired at a later date. My router is close enough to the computer. However, that is a pain for a lot of people.

- I created the *.xml settings file and did the commands to change the settings. Warning...Reagentc doesn't just import the settings, it actually links to the actual file, so make a sound decision on where you want to keep it. When it didn't work I found out that reagentc doesn't simply revert back default settings, and I couldn't find where the default file is/was to get the path. I ended up restoring the system to get it back. Does anyone know where the default *.xml is stored for future attempts?

- After pointing reagentc to the created file, it showed the correct setting...EXCEPT..SSID and password were blank. Unlike the example, they simply show up as " ". I tried a few times and figured that maybe it was a security feature so someone can't simply enter the command and know your password. When I rebooted in test mode, it still failed...same issue as my initial post.

Hopefully an up-coming 25H2 update will add options to Settings to make it simple to set the feature up. In the interim it looks like I need to rely on frequent backups.

mccmw said:

FrancoDT...I also found a note that alludes to what you say that wi-fi may not be ready yet...maybe I'll try wired at a later date. My router is close enough to the computer. However, that is a pain for a lot of people.

Click to expand...

Not to mention some laptops don't even have an ethernet card and only come with a Wifi card.

mccmw said:

- After pointing reagentc to the created file, it showed the correct setting...EXCEPT..SSID and password were blank. Unlike the example, they simply show up as " ". I tried a few times and figured that maybe it was a security feature so someone can't simply enter the command and know your password. When I rebooted in test mode, it still failed...same issue as my initial post.

Click to expand...

yeah it's broken. Don't believe the Windows PM's when they post shiny blogs.

I was able to get QMR working on my wifi only laptop after a couple of hours with ChatGPT; heres a summary. I hope it helps someone.

Enabling Quick Machine Recovery (QMR) over Wi-Fi

Problem: By default, QMR in Windows only works if the PC is connected to the internet via Ethernet. Wi-Fi requires extra setup because WinRE (the recovery environment) doesn’t automatically know your network credentials.

1. Identify and export your Wi-Fi profile on the running Windows system

Open an administrator Command Prompt.

List saved profiles:

netsh wlan show profiles


Export the profile you want WinRE to use:

netsh wlan export profile name="YourSSID" folder=C:\Temp key=clear


This creates an XML file containing the SSID and password.

Note: key=clear stores the password in plaintext — keep the file secure.

2. Mount the WinRE image

Create a folder for mounting (example: C:\WinREMount).

Mount the WIM file:

dism /mount-wim /wimfile:R:\Recovery\WindowsRE\Winre.wim /index:1 /mountdir:C:\WinREMount


Verify the mount: check that C:\WinREMount\Windows\System32 contains standard system files.

3. Copy the Wi-Fi profile into the mounted WinRE
copy "C:\Temp\WiFi-YourSSID.xml" "C:\WinREMount\Windows\System32"

4. Edit WinRE startup script (startnet.cmd)

Open C:\WinREMount\Windows\System32\startnet.cmd in Notepad.

Append commands to automatically import the Wi-Fi profile and connect:

netsh wlan add profile filename="WiFi-YourSSID.xml" user=all
netsh wlan connect name="YourSSID"
ping 127.0.0.1 -n 6 >nul
for /f "tokens=2 delims=:" %%i in ('netsh wlan show interfaces ^| findstr /i "State"') do (
if /i "%%i"==" connected" (
echo Wi-Fi Connected Successfully.
) else (
echo Wi-Fi Connection Failed.
)
)
ipconfig


The ping adds a short delay to allow the connection to establish.

5. Commit changes and unmount the WIM
dism /unmount-wim /mountdir:C:\WinREMount /commit


This permanently saves the Wi-Fi profile and startup script into WinRE.

6. Test

Boot into WinRE (Advanced Startup → Troubleshoot → Command Prompt).

If configured correctly, it will automatically connect to Wi-Fi and display the IP configuration.

Quick Machine Recovery can now access the internet without human intervention.

Key Notes

Works only for Wi-Fi networks using WPA2‑PSK / AES (most common home networks). WPA3 or mixed-mode networks may require manual password entry.

The Wi-Fi profile stored in WinRE contains the password in plaintext — handle carefully.

Ethernet always works without modification.

This procedure is generic: replace YourSSID and the XML filename with whatever network you want WinRE to connect to.

As I had chosen a WPA3 network it did not work immediately but it did show all my networks and when I picked a WPA2 network and supplied the password it connected and launched the QMR. I had no faults so it had nothing to do.