Windows 10: Unable to remove Window.old

Tonight, I thought I might as well get rid of the Windows.old and the Windows10upgrade. First, I used Revo Uninstaller to take out Windows10Upgrade. When it came up to uninstall, I thought no, I'll do this later. So hitting the X up in the right hand corner did nothing. So I went to Task Manager and hit the End Task. Great But then Revo came up to do a search in the Registry to I let it go. Clicked deleted on what it found and no problem.
Then I went to Diskcleanup and cleaned up all the files, including Clean up System files. In there I made sure to check off everything actually. Doing this twice, Windows.old and Windows10upgrade are still showing in File Explorer. I might add, that "previous windows installation" is not showing in the Disk Cleanup. Yet it is still there in File Explorer.
I guess my question is, is there another way to remove this stuff so I can free up Disk space?

:)

 

windows.old folder

Hello sir,

I am using window 10 . Few months ago I had reset my computer, after that windows.old folder is created on C drive. I used disk clean up to remove the window.old folder. But in C drive there is still a window.old folder with folder size 279mb. How to remove
that folder. please reply.

***Post moved by the moderator to the appropriate forum category.***

 

Thanks for the giant locked forge file microsoft

Hi,

To assist you with this, try to use the command tool to remove it. "rmdir /Q /S {window.old}". In the {} you would place the absolute folder name. Update us with the result.

Kind regards.

 

I had the same experience trying to remove windows.old and its subfolders (which were all empty after doing the disk cleanup). I had to take ownership of all, change permissions to full control for my account, remove read only, and then delete all, including windows.old.

 

Did you have to do what you did to each separate folder within Windows.old or just Windows.old itself?Did you have to finally use Disk cleanup to finally remove it or just delete it from File Explorer? I'm also seeing nothing in each of the folders.
Also, what do you make of not being able to uninstall Windows10Upgrade?

 

I believe once the ownership was properly set I was able to select multiple folders within a folder and delete them at the same time. I was able to delete everything and did not need to run Disk Cleanup to remove the windows.old top folder. The process took only a few minutes once I figured it out.

It's interesting that I had the windows.old folder delettion issue only on my Surface Pro 4 -- my desktop windows.old folder deleted fully with Disk Cleanup. It was the other way around with a previous major update to Windows 10 late last year.

I do not have a Windows1oUpgrade so I can't comment on that.

 

"Ownership properly set" ... easily said but how? Would you recommend this following link to do what I think you're saying?
Delete Windows.old Folder after a Windows Upgrade | PCsteps.com

OR ... will this following command work to remove Windows.old after the Anniversary Update has been installed?

RD /S /Q %SystemDrive%\windows.old

 

I ran disc cleaner to remove Windows.old but it left a couple of files behind, couldn't manually remove the as it wouldn't allow me but CCleaner removed them fine.

 

I've got CCleaner up and going now as I type. I'm getting this there warning that says "All the System and User files from your previous Windows installation will be deleted. Please ensure these are not required before selecting this option."
I understand the "files being required" refers to one wanting to downgrade to an earlier of Windows and not the present OS needing anything in here, correct? I also take it then just hit the OK is fine but remember, this is a weird situation. The Folder is there with subfolders but there is absolutely nothing in either of the Folders. If you were sitting here in front of someone else computer, would you just hit the ok since if there was a problem, it really wouldn't matter that much because it's someone else's computer. Seriously, I take it it is ok to continue on with CCleaner. Please advise.

 

I believe the process is the link it what I used, or is similar to it, to change ownership. I don't know what the RD command line options are so I can't reply to that.

 

Give me your opinion pjllb with regards to going ahead with the CCleaner to remove Old Windows. Got to admit, I'm always half afraid these programs will do something to the main OS and leave me in great pains. In other words, have you or would you use it to remove Windows.old?

 

When I tried CCleaner to remove those files, it did no better than CleanMgr.exe. I ended up having to boot into the installer, then removing the remaining files (some drivers and a few Windows Store apps) from the command line. Here's a link to the blog post I wrote about this: "Anniversary Update Post-Install Cleanup." PLMK if you need more details.
--Ed--

 

I'm seeing things I've never seen before (mama told me not to come) ... booting into the installer? What is that by the way? Also, what do you make of no files being in the Windows.old Folders? I did the Disk Cleanup but marked off everything to be deleted in there. Apparently I wasn't supposed to.
Also, thank you for your response.

 

Booting into the installer means changing the boot order in BIOS so the PC boots from your installation media instead of the normal default boot disk. Methods for making this happen vary by platform: from what I see online at ASUS Republic of Gamers (ROG) it looks like the old F8 during initial post (before Windows starts booting) might do the trick. That should provoke a menu that lets you pick an alternate boot drive. If it works, pick the drive associated with install media; if it doesn't work, check your manual to find out how to call up a boot drive selection menu on your laptop.
HTH,
--Ed--

 

I never use programs like CCleaner. If I can't perform the task manually I won't let a program do it using whatever brute-force method they use that is under to hood of the program and not documented for me to understand.