Even now, with large 1.2 TB hard drives at our disposal, we may lack free space... Particularly the decrease in free disk space will be noticed by those who upgraded from Windows7 / 8.1 to Windows10 ... This is due to the Windows.old folder that appeared, which takes up several tens of GB. This article will discuss why the Windows.old folder is needed, whether it can be deleted and how to do it.
The Windows.old folder contains the files and settings for your previous system. It is necessary for downgrade (rollback) from Windows 10 to a previous version of Windows .
Attention!!! If the Windows.old folder is deleted, the system will not return to the previous OS (Windows7 / 8.1). This folder should be deleted only if you are sure that you will use Windows 10 in the future.
There are several ways to delete the Windows.old folder:
I propose to disassemble each of the methods.
Remove Windows.old using Disk Cleanup.
For this method, you need to run the built-in Windows tool to remove unnecessary - "Disk Cleanup". To start it, press the "Win" + "R" key combination and in the Run line enter the command cleanmgr.
The "Disk Cleanup" window will open, click the "Clean up system files" button on it.
In the Delete the following files field, check the box next to "Previous windows installations"and click" Ok ".
To confirm deletion, click "Delete Files" in the next window.
Windows.old will be removed in a few minutes.
As a result, on the C drive, the Windows.old folder will be deleted.
Uninstall Windows.old using the command line.
For this method, run a command prompt with administrator rights. To do this, right-click on "Start" and select " Command line (administrator)".
takeown / F C: \\ Windows.old \\ * / R / A
cacls C: \\ Windows.old \\ *. * / T / grant<Ваша учетная запись>: F,eg cacls C: \\ Windows.old \\ *. * / T / grant site: F
rmdir / S / Q C: \\ Windows.old \\
As a result, you will delete the Windows.old folder.
How to remove Windows.old using CCleaner.
The first step is to download CCleaner ... Then unzip the archive and run the file of the corresponding version of your OS, if you have Windows x64, then CCleaner64, if 32 bit Windows - CCleaner.
In the program, you can uncheck all the boxes, and put in the line "Shed Windows Installation" or "Old Windows Installation".
If you have opposite the Other field exclamation point, click on it and agree to delete the logs.
Confirm the deletion of files by clicking the "Ok" button.
The folder will be deleted after a few minutes.
Thus, you can easily uninstall Windows.old in a way that suits you.
After updating the operating room windows systems a copy of it is created, into which all installed updates are integrated. The original operating system, for example, for rollback in case of problems within a month to the previous version, is stored in the "Windows.old" directory, which is located at the root of the system drive (usually, this is the drive labeled "C:"). The same happens when installing a new operating system on top of the old one, that is, when the user boots not from the installation disk / flash drive, but starts the installation from under a running Windows.
Can I delete the Windows.old folder?
Naturally, such a directory takes up a significant amount of space, sometimes up to 15 or even more Gigabytes (for example, when upgrading Windows 8 to version 10, the folder takes about 20 GB), which is unacceptable for the system disk (after all, most users give the system partition no more than 30 -60 GB). If you do not intend to do prior to the previous version, for example, the trial period of 30 days has expired after windows updates 8 to 10, then we don't need the Windows.old folder, and we can safely delete it in order to free up a dozen or two gigabytes of space on system disk.
In order to make sure that a significant amount of free space on the system disk is occupied by the Windows.old folder that we do not need, you need to check whether it is present and how much space it takes.
How do I find the Windows.old folder?
- To do this, start Windows Explorer and go to the "C:" drive.
- Next, select this directory, if present, and call its context menu.
- Select "Properties" from the drop-down menu.
Items 2-3 can be combined: select the directory and hold down the "Alt + Enter" key combination.
- We look at the space occupied by its files in the "Size" item.
How do I delete the Windows.old folder?
Method 1. How to remove Windows.old?
In order to erase the Windows.old folder with all its contents, perform the following steps.
- Launch the window windows explorer any method and go to the "My Computer" directory.
- Then select the system drive "C:" and call its context menu with the right mouse button and select "Properties" from the drop-down list of parameters.
You can also select a disk and press the Alt + Enter key combination to open the Properties dialog box of the selected object.
- In the first tab of the "Properties: Local disk (C :) "under the name" General "click on the" Disk Cleanup "button.
4. We are waiting while the operating system analyzes its contents to calculate the occupied space and find junk files.
After a few tens of seconds, a maximum of a couple of minutes, the "Disk Cleanup" window will open.
- We get acquainted with the objects that can be deleted and mark unnecessary in your opinion checkboxes.
- Below we click on the "Clear system files" button (the action requires administrator rights if the action is performed from an account with limited rights).
System Disk Cleanup calculates the space that can be removed without causing any harm to the operating system. The operation can take up to several minutes if the system disk is large.
- In the "Disk Cleanup ..." window that opens, put a check mark next to the "Previous Windows installations" item, where the volume occupied by the files of the previous operating system is written (in our case, it is about 24.5 GB).
- To erase the "Windows.old" directory from the computer, click on the "OK" button.
9. In the next dialog box with a warning, we agree to the operation by clicking "Delete files" or by clicking "Enter" on the keyboard.
After that, the operating system will start deleting the Windows.old folder with all the files.
Method 2. Deleting the Window.old folder in the usual way
You can delete the directory with the files of the previous OS using the most usual method, while having administrator rights, but you must immediately open the Window.old directory and all its subdirectories with full access to perform any operations with them.
1. Call the "Properties" folder Window.old as in the previous methods.
2. Go to the "Security" tab.
3. Select the computer administrator from the "Groups and users" list.
5. In the window "Advanced security settings" for the Windows.old directory, go to the tab with the name "Owner" and click the "Change" button.
6. In the list of users, select the account from which you will delete the directory, and put the checkbox next to "Change the owner of subcontainers and objects"
7. Click "Apply".
8. We are waiting until Windows completes the operation of assigning new rights to all files.
9. Go to the "Permissions" tab and click "Change".
10. Select the new owner of the folder in the form "Permission Items".
11. Click "Change" again.
12. In the dialog "Permission element for ..." in the drop-down list of parameters called "Apply", select the parameter, as in the screenshot.
13. In the "Permissions" field, check "Full Control" in the "Allow" column.
14. Click "OK".
15. In the "Additional security settings for ..." dialog box, check both items and click "Apply".
16. In the warning window, click "Yes".
Now the Windows.old directory can be deleted with the usual windows tools: go to drive "C:", select the folder and press "Shift + Delete" to permanently delete the folder, confirming your intentions in the dialog box.
If you still have questions on the topic "How can I delete the Windows.old folder after updating the system? ", You can ask them in the comments
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Hello dear readers of the site site. Today I would like to tell you, and to be more specific windows old folders... In the article I described how to clean the computer, but I did not describe how to remove it. previous Windows installations and now I will fix it.
How do I delete previous Windows installations or Windows old folders?
It is actually very easy to delete, at first, when only re-saw windows old foldersand naturally tried to delete them, but it was not there, they did not delete. And then I started looking for a solution, which was right under my nose.
How to remove windows old in Windows 7
The point is to remove windows.old folder it does not work due to the fact that the system administrator is different, and the rights to delete remained with the previous one. You can, of course, set administrator rights in the folder properties or delete as administrator, but why, when the system can do everything itself.
To do this, go to start - all programs - standard - service
Select the disk on which you have your previous operating system.
I have this drive C.
Push oK.
The system scans what can be removed.
A delete list appears unnecessary files from a Windows point of view. I wrote about this in the article.
We choose previous Windows installations well, if necessary, go through the list and check the boxes that you need. And press OK.
A window will appear in which click delete files... After cleaning, restart your computer and preferably do.
Windows old how to uninstall on Windows 10 and 8
In Windows 8 and 10, the procedure is the same, only to run the cleaning tool you need to open the computer, right-click on the disk on which this folder is located.
Do not be alarmed, the program will only start analyzing the disk.
After analysis, it will offer files for deletion. But we click to clear system files.
The program will analyze the files for deletion again and find Previous Windows installations in the list. We put a tick in this item and in other items if you need to delete something else and click OK.
That's it, the previous Windows installation is removed, as well as the non-removable windows.old folder too 🙂
After upgrading and switching to a new version of Windows 10, the user notices the directory on the system drive Windows.old, which came from nowhere. At the same time, the directory takes up many gigabytes of disk space, and deleting it in a standard way is not possible. In this article I will tell you what this Windows.old folder is, explain the reasons for its appearance, and also describe in detail how to delete this folder from your disk.
Typically, the Windows.old folder is created by the system after upgrading Windows to a newer version. The system places files and directories from the previous version of Windows in this folder, and you can use them to return to old versionif for some reason the new OS did not suit you. In addition, if you are interested in a specific file in the old OS version, you can always go to the folder in question and find it there.
Windows folder.old has three directories in it:
- Windows - system files of the previous OS version;
- Documents and Settings - documents and settings;
- Program Files - folder with previously installed programs.
If you decide to search desired file in this directory, don't take too long to search. Usually Windows 10 deletes the folder with Windows.old in just a month in order to free up disk space.
Returning to the previous OS version
For example, if you went to the tenth windows version and its interface or functionality did not suit you, you can use the files in the windows.old folder to return to the old OS version (7, 8, 8.1).
- Go to settings, select updates and security, then click on "Recovery" (Recovery).
- You will see a button to revert to the previous OS version.
- Press one of these keys and Windows will restore the previous version of the operating system using the files in Windows.old as the source.
How to recover personal files from Windows.old
Just use explorer or other file manager, go to this directory, your personal files are located in Windows.old \\ Users \\ YOUR NAME.
How to remove Windows.old
It can be seen that this Windows.old folder takes up a significant amount of space on the hard disk, its volume usually starts from 10 gigabytes or more, quite normal size 20 or more gigabytes are considered. If you try to delete this folder in the standard way (through the explorer), you will receive a system error message. Of course, you can try to get around this message by changing the attributes of this directory and its attachments, but, in any case, this is not quite the correct way.
- The system toolkit will help us to delete the Windows.old folder. In Windows 10, click on the "Start" button, find "Disk Cleanup" in the start menu, and launch the Disk Cleanup application.
- You can also choose another path by right-clicking on the C drive, selecting "properties", and then clicking on the "Disk Cleanup" button (this is also true for other versions of Windows).
- In the menu that appears, click on "Cleaning system files". You will see a "Previous Windows Installations" item with an indication of how much space they take up. Select this item and delete the files of the previous OS version.
- This is usually enough for removal. If this directory has not been deleted for some reason, start the console with administrative rights and type there: rd / s / q c: \\ windows.old.
You can visually watch the removal process in the video:
Conclusion
As you can see, it is quite easy to correctly delete the Windows.old directory in question, you just need to use the built-in Windows OS toolkit to clean the disk. At the same time, you do not need to try to delete this folder in the standard way or play with its attributes - it is better to choose a proven option recommended by specialists.
The computers of modern users have terabyte hard drives, but it often happens that there is still not enough free space. PC owners face a sharp and significant decrease in the amount of free disk space if they have upgraded from Windows 7 or 8.1 to version 10.
This is the fault of the emerging Windows.old directory. This article will tell you about the procedure for deleting this folder, as well as what it is for and when you can get rid of it.
What is this directory and can I delete it?
It appears after installing the OS, if the disk is not formatted. The files of the previous Windows remain in this directory. It cannot be removed in the usual way.
It should be noted that if the folder appeared after updating to Windows 10, then it may be required to roll back the system. In this case, it is recommended to postpone the disposal of the catalog for at least one month (suddenly there will be problems with the new axis).
If the user does not intend to return to the previous OS, Windows.old must be removed, because this will free up a significant amount of memory.
First method of deleting a folder
This method is the easiest to use. All inexperienced users can use this first method. In order to use it, you need a program.
Utility launch algorithm:
- Through "Start" enter "All programs" and then "Standard";
- Then open the "Service" and find the utility.
Unfortunately, this does not work in the case of the G8 installed on the computer. Windows users 8, the following steps must be followed:
When the utility opens, the following steps will be the same on operating systems:
- Specify the files to be deleted. To do this, put a check mark next to "Previous Windows Installations" and click on "OK" - \;
- Wait until the end of the process;
- Done! Windows old directory was deleted successfully.
Second removal method
This is a manual method for deleting a folder.
In order to use it, you need rights to the Windows old folder, i.e. the uninstallation procedure is performed with computer administrator rights and at the same time account the administrator must have full access to the deleted directory.
