Windows 10: The Windows.old folder will not delete

So I followed these steps:

• I opened my search box.
  
  
• In the search box, type Admin, I right clicked Disk Cleanup and selected run as Administrator.
• In the Disk Cleanup dialog, I clicked Clean up system files.
  
  
• I select the Previous Windows installation(s) check box, and then clicked OK.
  
  
• I then clicked Delete files.
  
  
  the folder is still there.... any ideas what to do now???
  

:)

 

How to delete the windows.old folders

I found a source. The old windows.old folders can not be deleted easily. But the empty windows.old folders can easily be deleted by using a Software tool "Puran Delete Empty Folders".

Thanks for all who suggested me to delete the windows.old folders from C.Drive.

 

How to delete the windows.old folders

After upgrading to the latest Preview Builds, I used to deleted the previous installation folders. Even though the previous installation was deleted, a windows.old folder remains. Thus there are windows.old, windows.old(1) to windows.old(4) (Total
five folders) are remained in C.Drive. I ran the Command Prompt with Admn.. to delete these folders. But it says 'access is denied'. I am asking how to remove these extra folders.

 

Can you open the folder and see what are left behind ?

If the folder is empty > right click > Delete.

 

inside are :
Program Files>Windows Defender a bunch of dll and 2 exe files
Windows and a few folders like Fonts-Assembly-Microsoft.NET

none will delete
I took ownership and they still won't delete

 

also followed instructions at Windows.old Folder - Delete in Windows 10 - Windows 10 Forums
and when i tried RD /S /Q %SystemDrive%\windows.old some files listed as access denied

 

Install Ccleaner
Download CCleaner | Clean, optimize & tune up your PC, free!
Pick the Free version.

Open ccleaner > left side, scroll down to Advanced section > check the box " Old Windows Installation" > right side, click Analyze > when analyze is completed, click Run Cleaner.

 

and yes in administrative mode

how can i tell if one of the things in the folders are running in the background so i can stop it and maybe try again.. that could be the issue

 

working on ccleaner right now - will update

 

Neither can I.
My apology for wasting your time.

Someone will come along to help you.
Good luck.

 

I've been in your situation and have found two possible avenues down which to proceed:
1. the sure-fire method is to build yourself a bootable Linux USB drive, boot to that drive, mount the system drive as a Linux volume, then root around in the file system to do what you must. This article explains how: How to mount partition with ntfs file system and read write access.
2. Try booting from a repair or other bootable USB Windows 10 installer, get into the repair facility, go to the command line, and delete the files from here. You'll have to take ownership once again, but you may be able to successfully delete the Windows.old stuff in this context (notice I said "may", which is why I recommend the Linux approach).
HTH,
--Ed--

 

have you shutdown and rebooted windows since you did the above

 

When I delete mine it usually leaves behind a couple of .dll files but will usually disappear after restart.