Windows 10: Deletion of temp files and previous installation files not working.

Even when using disk cleanup in admin account it will say deleted but after restarting and going back into disk cleanup they are back.

Even using Windows app they come back after deletion . See screenshot




On another note system restore doesn't seem to work , i did a system restore and even though i got the message that system restore completed successfully after i rebooted my screen was frozen and i had to do a system refresh to get it up and running again.

I have been waiting for it to delete my temp files for 8 minutes already.

:)

 

Disk cleanup utility, temporary internet files not deleting

I have already deleted previous windows installation files and tried in safe mode. I did do the windows key +R then type temp. Then type %temp%. Then type prefetch. I did not deletes these files. Are these files safe to delete? There seemed to be quite
a lot in those files but did not add up to 2 gigs.

 

Windows 10 update previous installation deletion glitch on disk cleanup.

I recently updated to the latest version of Windows 10 from the previous, when I went to delete the old version of Windows 10, I noticed something very weird with the amount of storage it says it will clear. (see attached images) I only have a 500 GB hard
drive and i have no clue why it says that deleting the previous version of windows will clear up 4 TB of storage. Is this just a bug and i should go ahead and delete it or should i keep it and ignore it.

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I trust you are still running the upgrade to 10 and haven't seen to a clean install as of yet. That will now seem to be the best move since you already have 10 activated. And for seeing all the clutter gone once and for all you might want to consider a reformat of the drive in the process once you have anything and everything you want from the drive backed up elsewhere.

Once you see to a clean install and get all the programs back on you have on now you might also want to see to it that you make a full system image backup of the drive for safe keeping once the clean install is found running good. On a second case here I just restored an image of 7 onto a second drive that was added into that case to see a working dual boot with 10 there as well as on the main.

The problem you are having with the DC tool not actually cleaning off the files is likely a registry issue where the tool only goes through the motions of cleaning things up. This seems to be the commonly seen type of problem with 10 upgrades where you end up needing to go for the clean install right after! On a 7 laptop the Start button was missing. The Start>Settings screen was blank! And you couldn't even get into the Apps section at the bottom. Nuke upgrade, Clean install 10, working solution!

 

Actually this is a second clean install i am working with now , the first clean install failed to correct this problem as well . I always nuke everything and never even make a backup of system files because there is never anything i want to keep .

After i get everything working with a clean install i always make a full system image but i want to fix this issue first . I even did a system refresh after the first clean install in an effort to correct this issue .

Chkdsk and sfc/scannow come up with no issues as well. I have used TFC and CCleaner to try and get them deleted to no avail.

Thanks for the feedback .

 

Have you repartitioned the drive at all or simply reformatted it only? If the volume has seen some corruption as far as the tables are concerned a total wipe of the drive should insure better results on the fresh primary you would create afterwards. Since you are seeing repeat reoccurances that would seem to be the solution as something remains on the present primary.

As I was mentioning before the registy is taking you through all of the motions while this would explain the why the DC tool isn't able to clean things up since these are phantom type files and folders typically seen when a partition loses integrity. I am beginning to suspect this could well the main reason since you have had repeat clean installs but not on a fresh primary since the first is going on you.

 

What do you mean by a fresh primary ? When the option comes up to either upgrade or go the custom route when reinstalling i always go custom and format, i then delete and it always ends up with one partition .

I have always done it that way and i let windows do the partition part.

 

Well first off you can't be booted into WIndows and either reformat or delete the volume. You have to booted live from either a Windows installation media even the dvd for Vista or 7 as well as for 8, 8.1, and 10 all have the drive tools when booted live to remove the primary and see a brand new take it's place. At the command prompt option some would say use the DiskPart tool and type in "List Volume" after you reach the DiskPart command line ">" prompt where you then select the volume 10 was installed to provided you only have the one or you labeled the Volume to Windows 10 or W10 Pro or Home to know which one to select.

Once you have the volume selected there you would simply type in the "clean" command that will erase by zeroing out everything on the drive. This is why when having multiple volumes and drives you never would use the "Clean All" command or see everything on every partition/drive wiped clean! For the less experienced with this the gui method is the best recommend! to avoid mishaps until you are familiar with how to go about things on your own. And typically it doesn't take long once you have done it a few times! *Biggrin

With the drive cleaned off either by deleting in the drive tools or use of the clean command you would then add the new volume which is where you then select the partition type as well as the file system NTFS or Fat32 which would strictly be NTFS for the OS drive. XP was the last version that could be installed onto a Fat volume. For you however you would need to use the Drive Tools found right after you click the Install Now button and select the Custom not Upgrade option for the custom install of 10. Then you click on the drive tools link before clicking the next button since you would nuke the existing primary while in there to see the brand new one created and formatted to NTFS as well as the ability to choose a label when more then one drive or partition is present on the system.





The screen there shows how the drives are layed out here while booted in 10 as well as having a flash drive plugged in so you can see how that volume appears in the Disk Management along with the internal drives. If you had a dual boot going and were booted into the default version which also can be run as a stand alone drive being bootable on it's own you could simply click the volume 10 is on and select the delete volume option following by the "Add new volume" option while in Windows.

Now to avoid seeing the System Reserved partition usually about 300mb in size at the front of the drive you would simply use the drive tools option to see the new primary created where you create one single large primary to see WIndows installed onto. Many use to hate seeing drive space taken up by the System Reserved and want that gone.

The Windows installer has it's own reason by design for reserving that tiny amount! Besides a safe place to put the bootloader if you ever decide to use encryption on the drive as seen with 7 and the Bitlocker tool the small partition will boot the encrypted form of Windows up for you. For your purpose however simply seeing a single primary will suffice and effectively have seen all those hard to remove files and folders gone for good!

 

Thanks for the info , yes you are right i do use a Win 10 ISO to get to the custom installation point , i changed bios around so it boots from the disk .

I didn't know i have to use a "clean command" since i always just format and delete the partition , i did use a clean command when i first got the SSD to install the operating system on it , the guys at "seven forums" showed me how to do it .

So when i reinstall i have to do that again i suppose as the format and delete is wrong you say?

 

The clean command is one of the commands entered when using the DiskPart tool at the command prompt in the dos like window. You wouldn't use that when simply going into the Install Now and when arriving at the screen to select where the 10 installation will be going look down for the Drive tools link which will be the gui method for partitioning seen there. When not accustomed to entering dos like commands the Graphical User Interface makes life a bit easier! *Smile

Now if somehow the partition itself became flaky that would easily explain the phantom files you see them but can't quite... type problem you seem to be having. If you have nothing to back up on the drive and 10 is having numerous problems this will solve them all rather quickly. You get a brand new primary partition to work with along with the clean install of Windows 10 to debug everything at once.

But if you still continue to run into the same type of problem then the look at a possible hardware issue comes to mind like a worn drive? Before getting to that point however we want to find out if this is Windows or partition volume information problematic before looking at anything else. With the hard drive in the laptop I just upgraded and cleaned 10 to here I was unable to resize the primary after removing the HP tools and another 3rd party ware partition taking up about 17gb of space and no longer useful with 10 on. The drive will likely need to be wiped completed in order to see the single primary for 10 to go onto without fuss.

 

This definitely isn't a worn drive issue as it's only a few months old , as a matter of fact i installed clean about a half hour ago and the problem is gone , there is no "windows old " folder anymore for some reason.

My main question is , is it standard practice to do the diskpart thing every time you want to reinstall ? Will it provide better performance ? I suppose just formatting and deleting is mainly for non SSD use .

I have zero interest in partitioning anything unless it's required.

 

No it certainly isn't "Standard" practice just one method for partitioning drives that some prefer while others remain with the gui form running a 3rd party program. The Windows.old folder is seen when performing the upgrade type install as a rule unless you run the clean install while an existing copy of Windows is present where that is then created to pack things away.

On the laptop I had just upgraded from the 32bit 7 Home Premium to the 64bit 10 Home I first saw the upgrade to be followed by the 32bit 10 Home clean install without a reformat to the 64bit 10 Home install. During the 64bit install the first Windows.old was renamed to WIndows.old000. Following the full install of the 64bit 10 and once I nuked off the HP Tools and one other small partition to free up another 17gb on the 320gb drive seeing 289gb available I wasn't able to grow the primary out to fill in the gap and will now need to clean the drive off completely for a fresh primary. This is a time when the OEM primary is simply blocking any changes to the original layout of the partitioning. That will be a necessity in order to get the full use of the drive.

As for the WIndows.old folder only there is a guide for seeing that gone with three options available two of them at the command prompt in case you find you have that come again some time. Windows.old Folder - Delete in Windows 10 - Windows 10 Forums[2]=Installation%20and%20Setup

As for seeing a new primary created that option remains available when the existing partition is having problems where a simple reformat still results in seeing too many disk errors come up as well as the partition table being a bit off where then cleaning off the old entirely is beneficial for insuring stability not so much any performance gain except for not running into unwanted problems that result in seeing a slower Windows overall.

In fact when seeing the upgrade to 10 on the second system here first having split the single drive up I ended up seeing a second clean install to the second new primary created to replace the first which was moved to the front of the drive havind added in a second drive to restore 7 to. So far 10 has running nice and stable there despite that build in particular not having run into any of the seen often upgrade issues! The second drive added in was twice the size being a 1tb drive I split in two in order to see a storage/backup partition having seen the system image taken from the first 500gb drive shrunk down about 80gb simply to free up more drive space for storing an image of 10 as well as files for both versions. But this was by intent since the small mini tower that runs with a micro atx size board and just saw the memory upgrade from 4 to 8gb won't be seeing what I would normally have for the main build. In fact I don't even worry if either Windows gets trashed there since I can use that system for test purposes rather then risking anything on the everyday system.