Windows 10: Does W10 upgrade delete windows.old files afer 30 day rollback period?

I did an upgrade (not a clean install) to Win 10 Pro on an older laptop running Win 7 Pro. This was just over 30 days ago. All seemed to go fine and the system is working fine, with a few minor hiccups.

I have no intentions to rollback to Win 7 so have decided to remove the windows.old folder and regain disk space. Looked at the properties of the windows.old folder and discovered it was empty. I then opened the Disk Cleanup tool>Clean up system files and could not find any Previous Windows installation option.

Does the Windows 10 upgrade process automatically remove the windows.old files and the Disk Cleanup>Previous Windows installation option after the 30 day rollback period expires? I'm not really low on disk space (more than half is free) but would like to clean this up if possible or get an idea what happened to the windows.old files.

TIA for replies

:)

 

Why can't you roll back to Win7/Win8.1 after 30 Days from Win10 Upgeade?

To start off to be silly.....at midnight of the 30th day does the rollback files/feature turn into a Pumpkin?

Obviously there is saved files to achieve a Rollback...taking up space of your HDD. Will those files automatically delete?

I do see Windows.old in the C:\ root....I take it this is the rollback Folder that activates if you decide to rollback? Will that Folder just automatically delete...and the reason you cannot roll back on day 31?

Or is it a key within this Folder that counts down to 30 days and simply Locks out any roll back from being preformed...and all the Files in the Folder just remain...taking up space..and of no value?

Lastly Why? Why should it matter if you want to roll back in 2 days 30 days....or 6 months.....If you can do it within 30 days that same process should be available and present to do it any time after 30 days....you want.

 

Where is Windows10Upgrade folder

To answer your question, yes, it will automatically delete after 30 days.



NOTE: Please be aware the
Windows.old folder located at the root of the local disk where Windows 10 is installed will be deleted after 31 days automatically. The
Windows.old folder is used to facilitate the rollback. So please perform any rollback within 31 days or this option will no longer be available. Otherwise, create a backup before upgrading to Windows 10.

 

Hello YC4719, and welcome to Ten Forums. *Smile

Yes, the previous installation files will be automatically deleted after 31 days.

https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/4...s-windows.html

 

Thanks for the quick response! I suspected that was the case but good to have confirmation that it was not some issue with the upgrade process for my system. Would it be OK to delete the empty windows.old folder? It just has 5 empty folders.

 

Sure, it'll be safe to delete.

 

Thanks again for the info. Topic is solved.

 

You're most welcome. *Smile

 

One still wonders why, though Windows removes "most" of the content in this Windows.old Folder, why it can't be fully removed with Disk Cleanup. There are times when the Folder is not removed either and I'm one of those fortunate ones who knows. Microsoft Support created a new Account on my system, moved that Folder over into that, deleted the new Account and informed me Windows.old would disappear within 30 days. That was well over a year ago and the TEST Folder they created and the Windows.old File they moved over into that still remains. It did not remove itself or self destruct. Most interesting.