How to delete Windows.old (7gigs) after update...

[mitchellvii]

Here is article:

How do I remove the Windows.old folder?

 

[Series7man]

The article is for Windows 7. Is it the same for 8 or RT?

 

[mitchellvii]

The article is for Windows 7. Is it the same for 8 or RT?

Yep it works no troubles on 8.1. Have no idea on RT but since it is a Windows Utility can't hurt to try.

Just don't try to manually delete the folder. That will cause problems for you.

 

[Series7man]

Yep it works no troubles.

Thanks!!!

 

[mitchellvii]

Hmmm, seems my Microsoft Bluetooth Touch Mouse keeps disconnecting now. Have to turn it off and then on again to reconnect.

 

[gleth]

This works for RT too, thanks. I've now got more space than I had when my RT was new, even with the Rayman and Halo games still installed

 

[pallentx]

Wow. So much free space now. I may move some media to the C drive now and see if its faster.

 

[guillermomadrid]

Thanks

 

[aratnon]

I can't see Previous Windows installation(s) on my Surface RT.

 

[ScottyS]

I can't see Previous Windows installation(s) on my Surface RT.

I have this same issue on my Surface Pro. The reason . . . I no longer have a Windows.old folder. I know I did right after the 8.1 upgrade; it was 3.8GB. I did not delete it, and when I tried to do so with Disk Cleanup there's no Previous Windows installation(s) when I click Clean up system files (and it's not in my Recycle Bin, I looked there).

 

[hogwldfltr]

"If you install Windows 7 by performing a custom installation and don't format the partition during the installation process, files that were used in your previous version of Windows are stored in the Windows.old folder."

I don't have the old file either. The first line in the article is listed above. I assumed that it meant the file is only retained in a custom installation. Is this true?

But wait, looking at the directory I can find it but it doesn't show up in the Disk Cleanup process. Is there an issue with just deleting the directory?

 

[ScottyS]

But I did have it after the upgrade. I upgraded Win8 to Win8.1 on my Surface, no custom installation, not formatting any partition and I did have a Windows.old folder in my root directory because I checked it to see the size (3.8GB) with the plan to remove it later via Disk cleanup. But when I did it wasn't there. Very strange. Could an automatic update have deleted it? I still have the same free SSD space on my C drive, not 3.8GB more than after the update (the update gave me about 5-6GB more space than I had in Win8.