Is it possible to delete the windows old folder. Removing via Disk Cleanup

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Hello, dear friends, in today’s article we will talk about getting rid of old and unnecessary files that remain after re Windows installations. More specifically, we will talk about how to delete the Windows.old folder in Windows 7 (for example) from your computer or laptop.

For those who don’t know, I’ll briefly describe what kind of animal this is. The fact is that if, when installing Windows 7, no matter what other version, you did not format the disk where you installed the system, then absolutely all old files are saved in special folder under named Windows.old. Naturally, you need to get rid of it, since the free space on your hard drive should be valued and not littered with all sorts of rubbish. Of course, many will say: “Business!” I'll go now, find her, click right click mouse, select “Delete”, confirm my actions and everything is fine!” Nothing like this!

This, of course, can work, by the way, if you succeed, then you don’t even have to read further, but this rarely happens. Typically, there is an issue with access rights to perform this action. That’s why I decided to tell you how the Windows.old folder is deleted.

Now we will look at several ways to delete the Windows.old folder.

Removing via Disk Cleanup

Go to “Start” - “All Programs” - “Accessories” - “System Tools” - “Disk Cleanup”. You can also get here a little faster, namely: press the hot keys “Win” + “R” and enter Cleanmgr, then press Enter.

A dialog message will appear in front of you in which you must select local disk, on which you need to perform disk cleanup. For our procedure, you need to specify the drive on which the Windows.old folder is currently located. Then you need to wait a little while the data is analyzed.

In the next window, in the “Disk Cleanup” tab, click “Clean up” system files" If you are asked again which drive Windows is located on, then click OK again. Check the box “Previous Windows installations” and select Extra options, if you need to clean something from your computer. Click “OK” and select “Delete files.”

Live CD and assign deletion rights

So standard using Windows we just deleted the Windows.old folder. In principle, this article can be completed here, but there is another option for how to remove Windows.old - Live CD. If you are solving some issues through a Live CD, you can perform the removal procedure directly from under it. You don’t need to go into any settings; you delete it like regular files.

There is also another way to delete it - assign rights to the Windows.old folder and all the data that is in it. To do this, right-click on the folder and select “Properties”. Next, go to the “Security” tab, click on the “Advanced” button and go to the “Owner” tab, click “Change”. Next, select the desired account, check the “Replace owner of containers and objects” box below, then click “Apply”. To specify permissions, click on the “Permissions” tab, click on the “Change” button. Next, indicate the owner, who was made as the owner of this folder, I talked about this a little higher. Click "Edit" and set permissions for it. After this, click “OK”.

add permissions inherited from parent objects;
Replace all inheritable permissions for all descendants with new inheritable permissions from this object.

A couple of clicks left 😉. Click OK, a dialog message will appear, click “Yes”. I didn't do it the latter ways screenshots as I hope the first method will help you in this situation.

And that’s all for today, I hope that you have successfully removed Windows.old and now you can download something really useful to your computer. See you soon!

The Windows.old folder is automatically created in root directory disk with the operating system installed after updating it to the latest version. It stores copies of files from the previous OS, which are used when “rolling back” the system.

Important! If you have previously updated your OS to new version, or did a reinstallation in update mode, there will be several such folders. They are called Windows.old.000.

If the computer has a small volume internal storage, deleting a folder will save space because it takes up 20 GB of memory.

Deleting folders

You need to delete old files only when the computer is working stably, you have updated the OS to the latest version and do not intend to return to the “seven” or “eight” in the future.

Using the Disk Cleanup utility

IN latest versions operating system it became possible to delete this file through settings. Let's consider the option for new build Windows 10 and earlier.

Build 1803 April Update and newer

Starting with build 1803, which was released in the spring of 2018, you can delete files from the previous OS from the system settings:

Go to “Settings” through the “Start” menu (or with the Win+I key combination).
Item “System” → “Device memory”.
“Memory control” → “Free up space now.”

Note! The scanning process may take more than a few minutes.
Check the box next to “Previous Windows installations”.
At the top of the window, click “Delete Files.”

After the process is completed, the Windows.old folder will disappear on the system disk and will not take up space on the drive.

Previous builds of Windows 10

Note! This instruction relevant for OS builds lower than 1803.

Go to " My computer"(under the Administrator entry) and on the disk with the operating system installed, right-click and select the section " Properties».
“System Disk Properties” → “Disk Cleanup”

Healthy! The utility can be opened with the “cleanmgr” command:
Win+R → Run → cleanmgr → select the volume with the operating system
Click " Clean system files».
After re-analysis, select “” in the window and click “OK”.
Important! For additional cleaning free space also select items:
- temporary OS installation files;
- OS update log files.
Confirm deleting files.

You can watch the video for more details on the process of deleting this folder:

Via Command Line

Start Menu → Search → Command Prompt(under the Administrator account).
Type: rd /s /q c:\windows.old

Through the Command Line when restarting the computer

Conclusion

Delete folders from previous version operating system in one of three ways. The editors recommend using removal using the Disk Cleanup utility. This method is safer and more reliable.

Removal method	Reliability	Speed	Complexity	Editor's rating
	Average	High	Low	1
	High	Average	Average	2
Command line on reboot	High	low	High	3

Hello, regular and new guests of my blog! Those of you who updated software on your computer, you probably noticed the appearance on the C drive of a new unfamiliar directory called Windows old; now I’ll tell you what this folder is.

What, why and why

Deleting a folder

If the folder is an eyesore and you don’t want to wait a month, then you can delete it too. In the Start menu, type “cmd” into the search and run the found program as administrator from the menu that opens with a right-click.

When prompted, allow the program to make changes on the computer. In the list that appears, select “Run as administrator”.

In the window that appears, enter the underlined command as indicated in the image.

It is done! Now all that remains from the folder are memories.

A simple conclusion can be drawn from this situation: to effectively manage your data and productive work You need to know a lot of subtleties and secrets when using a computer.

Personally, the course helped me a lot to increase the productivity of my activities “ Secrets of productive work at the computer ". I recommend that you pay attention to it and spend your time with maximum benefit, having time to have a good rest and be with loved ones.

Well, that's all, friends. I hope that the article is clear, detailed and useful for you. Follow extra rubbish and don’t forget to clean your workspace and computer regularly. And also try not to clutter your head with low-quality information!

Subscribe to my blog updates, follow my VK group and tell your friends about them. Good luck!

Why do you need the Windows.old folder and how to delete it

If you find a folder on your disk called Windows.old and several tens of gigabytes in size, you should not immediately suspect viruses and other unwanted software. The Windows.old folder is quite harmless; it is created in the following situations:

When upgrading the operating system version (Inplace Upgrade), for example from Windows 8.1 to Windows 10;
When reinstalling the operating system in update mode;
When using the Refresh function.

Typically, Windows.old is located at the root of the system drive. If at the time of updating there is already a folder with the same name (for example, when updating again), then folders with the name Windows.old.000, Windows.old.001, etc. are created.

The Windows.old folder is intended to be able to restore if necessary separate files and even completely roll back to earlier installed system. She represents herself archival copy, in which the system saves the files from the previous installation. When installed, almost the entire contents of the system disk are saved into it - system files, installed programs and user files.

Note. The procedure for rolling back to a previous installation from the Windows.old folder is described. I’ll say right away that the procedure is quite complicated and requires some experience, in addition, when using it there is a chance of getting an inoperable system with no chance of recovery.

If after the update your system is stable and all files are in place, then the Windows.old folder can be deleted. However, this is not entirely easy to do, because the system sets special rights on it and when you try to delete it, you will be denied access.

But not everything is so scary, and there are still several ways to delete the Windows.old folder, which will be discussed further. So, method one...

Uninstall using Disk Cleanup

Go to the directory C:\Windows\System32, find the file cleanmgr.exe and run it as administrator.

In the list of components, check “Previous Windows installations” and click OK. We confirm the deletion of the selected files and in a couple of minutes the Windows.old folder with all its contents will be permanently deleted.

Manual removal

In some cases, it is not possible to use the disk cleanup utility; for example, in server operating systems it is simply not available. Here you will have to change permissions to delete file system to the folder. Open the folder properties, go to the “Security” tab and click the “Advanced” button to go to advanced security settings.

As you can see, the owner of the folder is the system, and the first thing you need to do to successfully delete it is to change the owner. Click “Change” and in the window that opens, select yourself ( current user, under which you logged in).

Then check the “Replace owner of subcontainers and objects” checkbox and click the “Apply” button.

After changing the user, you will need to reopen the security properties window. The next step is to give yourself permission to the folder. Click the “Add” button

We choose our own as the subject account, in the “Type” field select “Allow”, in the “Applies to” field - “For this folder, its subfolders and files.” Set the permission to “Full Control”.

Now check the “Replace all permission records of the child object with those inherited from this object” checkbox and click on “Disable inheritance”.

In the dialog box, select “Remove all inherited permissions from this object.”

As a result, we become the owner and the only user with rights to the folder. And now nothing will stop you from removing it :)

Uninstall from the command line

The same thing can be done from command line. To do this, you need to run the command line with administrator rights and change the owner of the folder:

Takeown /F C:\Windows.old /R /D y

Then get permissions on the folder and disable inheritance:

icacls C:\Windows.old\*.* /T /grant WKS1\Kirill:F /inheritance:r

And delete the folder:

rmdir C:\Windows.old /S /Q

Uninstall using the scheduler

And one more way that in theory can be used to delete the Windows.old folder.

According to information from Microsoft folder Windows.old should be automatically removed after 28 days of updating using a scheduled task. And indeed, in the planner, in the folder \Microsoft\Windows\Setup you can find a task with the name SetupCleanupTask, which should perform the necessary actions.

Note. The SetupCleanupTask can only be found on client operating systems. On server OSes, there is no Setup folder in the scheduler at all.

And now about the strange :)

If you look closely, you can see that for some reason the task is scheduled for 6 a.m. on January 2, 2004, so it has no chance of running automatically. Since testing was carried out on Windows 10, I thought about the shortcomings new system, but just in case I decided to double-check on another OS. To check, I made a test Windows update 8 to 8.1, but even there the SetupCleanupTask task was present in the scheduler and exactly the same schedule was specified for it.

Because the automatic start If it doesn't work, we'll try to run it manually. However, not everything is smooth here either. If you run this task on Windows 8.1, it deletes the Windows.old folder and is then removed from the scheduler. When launched in Windows 10, the task runs quite successfully, but nothing happens to the folder. And since a custom handler is specified as the executable action, it is not possible to find out the reason for this behavior.

Such are the things. However, the first two methods are quite enough to delete the Windows.old folder; I described this method only for general development.

Not formatted system disk Before reinstalling Windows, you will receive a burden in the form of files from the previous operating system (OS), stored in the Windows.old directory and occupying tens of gigabytes. In addition, there will be system folders old profile and no longer working option in the OS boot menu. It is necessary to get rid of this garbage normal operation computer. In this article, we will explain step by step how to remove traces of old Windows.

This folder is located on the C drive and stores personal data of the old Windows user, such as documents. You can open the directory, view the contents and copy necessary files. In the usual way You can't erase Windows.old. To do this you need to perform the following sequence of actions:

Removing old system folders

When you open the Users folder on drive C, you will see the system folders left over from the old Windows. They cannot be removed either from the explorer or special programs. To do this you will need to obtain owner rights:

Having received the necessary rights as the owner of the folder, you can safely send it to the Trash.

Editing the download menu

From the Run command line

Using this method you can remove unnecessary options from the bootloader menu forever.

From system settings

This option will hide unnecessary downloads when the computer starts.

Features of Windows XP

For the download manager Windows versions The boot.ini file is responsible here. It is hidden in root disk C and it can be edited in a regular notepad. It is better not to do this: an error when editing will lead to system failure. More safe way– use the settings described above (remove the list of OS downloads). You decide. We will only give advice on how to edit boot.ini.