How do I delete c:\windows.old (Windows 10 1809)

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How do I delete c:\windows.old (Windows 10 1809)

I successfully installed Windows 10 1809 update on 31 March.

Most of the windows.old folder was ‘automatically’ (that is, without input from me) deleted on 11 April, but several folders remain; namely:

Directory of c:\windows.old

11/04/2019  01:31 PM    <DIR>          .
11/04/2019  01:31 PM    <DIR>          ..
11/04/2019  01:35 PM    <DIR>          WINDOWS
0 File(s)              0 bytes

Directory of c:\windows.old\WINDOWS

11/04/2019  01:35 PM    <DIR>          .
11/04/2019  01:35 PM    <DIR>          ..
12/04/2019  10:22 PM    <DIR>          System32
0 File(s)              0 bytes

Directory of c:\windows.old\WINDOWS\System32

12/04/2019  10:22 PM    <DIR>          .
12/04/2019  10:22 PM    <DIR>          ..
11/04/2019  01:33 PM    <DIR>          DriverStore
0 File(s)              0 bytes

Directory of c:\windows.old\WINDOWS\System32\DriverStore

11/04/2019  01:33 PM    <DIR>          .
11/04/2019  01:33 PM    <DIR>          ..
11/04/2019  01:33 PM    <DIR>          FileRepository
0 File(s)              0 bytes

Directory of c:\windows.old\WINDOWS\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository

11/04/2019  01:33 PM    <DIR>          .
11/04/2019  01:33 PM    <DIR>          ..
11/04/2019  01:33 PM    <DIR>          igdlh64.inf_amd64_463164d40c3d26ce
11/04/2019  01:33 PM    <DIR>          intcdaud.inf_amd64_9a650cbe6e51d8eb
11/04/2019  01:33 PM    <DIR>          nvam.inf_amd64_8aed116415478c02
0 File(s)              0 bytes

Directory of c:\windows.old\WINDOWS\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\igdlh64.inf_amd64_463164d40c3d26ce

11/04/2019  01:33 PM    <DIR>          .
11/04/2019  01:33 PM    <DIR>          ..
0 File(s)              0 bytes

Directory of c:\windows.old\WINDOWS\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\intcdaud.inf_amd64_9a650cbe6e51d8eb

11/04/2019  01:33 PM    <DIR>          .
11/04/2019  01:33 PM    <DIR>          ..
0 File(s)              0 bytes

Directory of c:\windows.old\WINDOWS\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\nvam.inf_amd64_8aed116415478c02

11/04/2019  01:33 PM    <DIR>          .
11/04/2019  01:33 PM    <DIR>          ..
0 File(s)              0 bytes

Note that the dates are in dd/mm/yyyy format.

Question is: how do I delete these remaining folders?

I’ve tried to do so as Administrator, but I always get the message:

“You require permission from SYSTEM to make changes to this folder”

Any help most appreciated.

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Yep, Windows 10 should have removed all of that for you by now…

You should back up just in case, this is advanced and if used improperly can or may cause problems!

You can try this first:

Login as Administrator, open a Command Prompt (not PowerShell) as Administrator type this exactly as seen below:

takeown /F c:\windows.old /R /D Y

What takeown (take ownership) should do is automatically recursively give you ownership of all the directories & files, it will verbosely tell if there was a success operation.

If it worked, you can try to delete the windows.old directory.

 

1 user thanked author for this post.

AusJohn

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You can delete windows.old by running disk cleanup as administrator and selecting ‘previous windows installation(s).

1 user thanked author for this post.

AusJohn

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Thank you both for your suggestions.

Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, I didn’t get a chance to try either of them.

When I booted the laptop this morning I checked, and the remnants of windows.old had magically (mysteriously?) disappeared.  I don’t have any idea how or why, but I guess the main thing is that they’re gone.

Once again, thanks for taking the time to reply to my inquiry.

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AusJohn wrote:

How do I delete c:\windows.old (Windows 10 1809)

…

Question is: how do I delete these remaining folders? I’ve tried to do so as Administrator, but I always get the message: “You require permission from SYSTEM to make changes to this folder” Any help most appreciated.

If ever that or a similar problem occurs again,
you might try your (hidden) super-administrator account, after a thorough backup.

See https://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/enable-the-hidden-administrator-account-on-windows-vista/

And YES, it works in Windows 7, 8 and 10 too.

1 Desktop Win 11
1 Laptop Win 10
Both tweaked to look, behave and feel like Windows 95
(except for the marine blue desktop, rgb(0, 3, 98)

1 user thanked author for this post.

AusJohn

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Thanks.

I’ll make a note of the instructions in that URL so that, in case of a similar problem in the future, I can refer to it.

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After you upgrade Win10, you have 10 days to roll back to the previous version. After that, I think the system cleans out the old version. That may have been what you observed.

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I’m sure it was, but for some reason it left behind the few “crumbs” mentioned in my original post. That’s what I wanted to get rid of, but which for some reason disappeared of their own accord after a couple of days.

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Windows just deleted automatically my 45GB Windows.old (1803 to 1809) after 10 days.

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Much the same as my experience except that, as I reported above, there were unexplained “crumbs” left behind in my case, and they disappeared “automatically” a couple of days after the initial deletion.

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AusJohn wrote:

11

I’ve seen that pretty often. Many times the remnant folders do show 0 bytes, sometimes 1 byte after the 10 day period, 11 days but after a few more days the remnant folders do become deleted. In your case it looks like it took 13, maybe 14 days and that’s not unusual.

HP EliteBook 8540w laptop Windows 10 Pro (x64)

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Interesting, and useful to know. Thanks.

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