Windows 10: Delete Windows.old ?

I totally feel like I want to delete it, and I'll probably delete it regardless of what you guys say, but I still want to ask. Is there a reason why I should not want to delete it ?
Screenshot by Lightshot

:)

 

windows.old delete

Of course you can if your Windows 10 works well and you are satisfied with it. But still

backup Windows.old folderbefore deleting it in case that you want to roll backup to previous system.

 

windows.old delete

Yes, it can be removed, but please keep in mind, it will be automatically deleted after 10 days. Also note, in case you need to go back to your previous version, its a good reason to keep it.

That said, here is how you remove it:

Launch Disk Cleanup, the quickest way is this:

Press Windows key + R then type: cleanmgr.exe



Then hit Enter

Windows 10 > Start > All Apps > Windows Accessories > System Tools > Disk Cleanup



Once Disk cleanup opens, select the drive where Windows is installed if its not already.

Windows will scan your hard disk for files it can clean up.



Note some of these files too can include older installations of Windows. For example, if you upgraded from Windows 7 to Windows 10 a copy will be kept at the root of the hard disk in a folder calledWindows.old. Please becareful though, this
folder can actually be useful if you need to go back to your previous version of Windows for whatever reason. So be mindful before deleting it. Removing it though can significantly free up disk space.



After Disk Cleanup is finished scanning, you will see the Disk Cleanup window. This window provides a list of areas of the system you can clean up safely. Before we start cleaning up the system, you will notice appears on the window called Clean up
system files. Clean it and the Disk Cleanup will run a thorough check of the system again to include every file that can be removed.

As I noted earlier, the Windows.old folder is basically a backup of your old installation of Windows, which you can use to reinstall Windows if you decide to return to your previous installation. Also, its used as a last resort in case you didn’t backup
your files and need to recover personal files and settings. The Windows.old folder can use up a considerable amount of your hard disk space. Its normally stored at the root of your hard disk where Windows 7 is installed. Before you delete it, make sure you
check through the directories and ensure that everything migrated successfully to your current version of Windows.

Recover personal files from the Windows.old Folder such as Documents Pictures and Windows Live Mail Emails in Windows 10



Once you have determined what to remove, click OK then click the Delete Files button to begin.



Click Yes if you are ok with the action that will be taken.

 

Hello Marron,

If you performed a refresh of Windows 10, upgrade to Windows 10, or a custom install of Windows 10 on the same partition as the previous Windows installation without doing a clean install, then you will have a C:\Windows.old folder in your new installation afterwards. The Windows.old folder contains a copy of the previous Windows installation, and can be quite large in size.

The Windows.old folder is safe to delete if you do not want anything in it. *Smile

https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/2...dows-10-a.html

 

Well I deleted mine via disk cleanup. That said I make regular disk image backups.
So if you want to get the space back make sure you have a disk backup just in case.

 

I upgraded from Win 7 Pro and I deleted it with disk cleanup.

 

Well, it was just updating from build 10041 to 10074, so I guess I already have everything that's there. And why not simply plain delete the folder in explorer ?

 

Windows.old is a system folder and it must be deleted via Disk Cleanup.

 

No there are other ways to do it as explained in the link in Brinks Post.*Smile

 

Ok.. but I like the Disk Cleanup method and it does work.

 

Windows will not let you just simply delete it like that since it's a protected system folder. You can use any of the options in the tutorial link I posted to delete it though. *Smile

 

The one use I had for Windows.old was to create a ISO to use for additional or clean installs using the ESDtoISO tool. Now with the Windows 10 ISOs being published, that is no longer necessary so I delete it.

 

For some very odd reason I noticed Windows.old, Windows.old.000 and Windows.old.001 on my latest build. 10074 was my attempt to do a clean install, not sure why 3 previous versions were there??

 

You still didn't do completely new installation, you know, the one with formatting OS drive first. No problem though, if you have some personal file there, you can save them somewhere else and than delete windows.old.