Quick machine recovery in Windows 11: what it is and how to turn it on or off

What quick machine recovery does

Microsoft built quick machine recovery (QMR) after widespread boot failures such as the July 2024 CrowdStrike outage, where many PCs needed the same fix but couldn’t start Windows to get it. According to Microsoft’s Learn documentation, it builds on Startup Repair: instead of only trying local repairs, the PC can use a network connection inside the Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE) to look for a remediation on Windows Update.

When it’s on, the process goes like this:

1. Windows detects that the PC has failed to start several times in a row.
2. The PC boots into WinRE instead.
3. WinRE connects to the network and checks Windows Update for a fix.
4. If one exists, it’s downloaded and applied, and the PC restarts into Windows.
5. If nothing is found, you’re shown the usual recovery options, or the PC tries again later if it’s set to keep looking.

Microsoft is clear that this is best-effort. It only helps when Microsoft has published a fix for the specific failure, so it isn’t a replacement for backups or the normal recovery tools. You can also start it yourself from WinRE under Troubleshoot > Advanced options > Quick machine recovery.

Is it on by default?

Microsoft’s documentation describes two parts: cloud remediation, which lets recovery use the network and Windows Update, and auto remediation, which starts the search without you doing anything. The defaults depend on the edition and on whether an organization manages the PC:

PC	Cloud remediation	Auto remediation
Windows 11 Home	On	On, one scan
Windows 11 Pro, personal (not domain-joined or managed)	On	On, one scan
Windows 11 Pro managed by an organization	Off	Off
Windows 11 Enterprise and Education	Off	Off
Windows Server 2025	Off	Off

By default the PC runs one scan rather than repeating it, so a PC with no available fix won’t sit in a recovery loop. Microsoft added Windows Server 2025 support with the October 2026 security update.

Turn it on or off in Settings

1. Open Settings > System > Recovery. You can also press Win + R, type ms-settings:recovery and press Enter.
2. Select Quick machine recovery.
3. Turn the Quick machine recovery toggle on or off.
4. With it on, you can also choose whether Windows automatically looks for solutions and how often it retries and restarts if the first search finds nothing.

Microsoft’s support article only describes the sub-options as retry and restart intervals, and their exact labels have changed during testing, so match them to what your PC shows. If the toggle is greyed out, the PC is probably managed by your work or school, and the setting comes from IT.

Check the settings from Command Prompt

To see exactly how QMR is configured, open Command Prompt as administrator and run:

reagentc.exe /getrecoverysettings

It returns a short block of XML. CloudRemediation state="1" means cloud remediation is on and "0" means it’s off. The AutoRemediation line shows whether automatic search is on, plus totalwaittime and waitinterval in minutes. If you saved Wi-Fi details for recovery, they can also appear here, so don’t paste the output anywhere public.

There’s one important limit. Microsoft says WinRE currently supports only wired networks and WPA or WPA2 password-based Wi-Fi. Work Wi-Fi that uses certificates or a sign-in page, and hotel or café captive portals, won’t work, so keep an Ethernet cable or adapter handy if you rely on this.

Microsoft also documents a test mode (reagentc.exe /SetRecoveryTestmode followed by reagentc.exe /BootToRe), but it’s currently limited to PCs in the Windows Insider Experimental channel, so on a normal PC it won’t simulate a recovery.

How to tell if it fixed your PC

If your PC failed to start and then came back on its own, open Settings > Windows Update > Update history and look under Quality updates. Microsoft says a fix applied by quick machine recovery is listed there. If Windows still won’t start after recovery, the normal options in WinRE remain, such as Startup Repair, uninstalling the latest update or System Restore.

Should you leave it on?

For most home PCs, yes. It only does anything when Windows can’t start, it applies fixes Microsoft publishes through Windows Update, and with the one-scan default it gives up quickly if there’s nothing to apply. Reasons to turn it off are narrow: you need full control over every change, for example on a test machine, or your PC can only reach the internet over a network WinRE can’t use, so it would never find anything anyway.

It does depend on a working recovery environment. If reagentc /info shows WinRE as disabled or the recovery partition is missing, see how to create or rebuild the recovery partition. Boot errors that aren’t about a failed update, such as “Windows could not update the computer’s boot configuration”, need their own fixes.

For IT admins

• Intune: the Recovery CSP uses ./Vendor/MSFT/Recovery/QuickMachineRecovery/EnableQuickMachineRecovery and an AutoRemediationSettings node with EnableAutoRemediation, SetRetryInterval (0 to 4,320 minutes; 0 means one attempt) and SetTimeToReboot (1 to 4,320 minutes). Microsoft lists Windows 11 24H2 and 25H2 builds from .8737 as supported; check the page for your build.
• Group Policy: Microsoft’s Group Policy article covers Windows Server 2025 and puts the policies under Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > System > Quick Machine Recovery. Microsoft notes that Not Configured isn’t an off switch; set the policy to Disabled to turn it off.
• Update source: fixes come from Windows Update. Microsoft says WSUS and offline update sources aren’t supported for these remediations.
• Command line: reagentc.exe /setrecoverysettings /path applies an XML file in the same format that /getrecoverysettings returns.

Related guides

• WinRE: what the Windows Recovery Environment is and how to open it
• How to create or rebuild the recovery partition in Windows 11 and 10
• “Windows could not update the computer’s boot configuration”: how to fix it
• Cloud rebuild in Windows 11: reinstall Windows without a USB drive

Official sources

• Quick machine recovery (Microsoft Learn)
• Quick Machine Recovery in Windows (Microsoft Support)
• Recovery CSP (Microsoft Learn)