Windows 10: Win 10 How to get rid of Windows.old folder and content.

*Think

As always, there seems to be lots of alleged fixes out there, which may work on versions earlier than Win 10... but not with Win 10. The struggle for getting rid of this now un-needed bloat seems to be wrapped up in file permissions. But even when I try to clobber it with administrative authority, it won't budge. One fix suggests that you can use disk cleanup to get rid of it by selecting previous installation files. Heh. Yeah. Just TRY and find that option in Win 10.

Ok. Somebody hopefully has managed to resolve this inigma. Step by step, please. *Smile

:)

 

Windows.old folder

When can I get rid of the windows.old folder created as a result of the last Win 10 upgrade?

 

Win 10 Upgrade done - can I delete $Windows.~WS folder?

I finished my Win 10 upgrade and all is fine. I ran the Disk Cleanup and it got rid of the Windows.old folder contents. But I still have a folder called $Windows.~WS with almost 5 gb of files. Can I just delete it?

 

Type Diskcleanup in Cortana, bottom left.
Click on Cleanup System Files, There you will see a second option in yellow highlight, More options.
Do note the bottom Attachment comes up first.

 

Are you asking how to find disk cleanup? If so just type it in the search bar and it will ask u which drive just choose c and a selection will come up. Just go from there.

 

*Sad

Sadly, in my recent version of windows, the delete "Previous windows installation" option to check is never presented. Even in the system cleanup. Then I simply right clicked on drive C: and went into the disk tools. Using this approach the option for previous installations was found. Maybe I just missed it. Anyway, the folder is now gone. *Biggrin