Removing “Windows Old” folder

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A few days ago I did a reinstall/repair because of instability with my Windows 10 upgrade. I made a Macrium image before the operation in case things went wrong. I have now removed a number of programs and “cleaned up” the new installation and made another image. I noticed that the “before” image was 38 GB and the “after” 44 Gb; using Treesize I see that there is a Windows Old folder of 15 GB, with such folders as Program files (x86) and program files, repeating other folders on the disk. I knew that the upgrade made a folder for reverting to the previous Windows version, but not the reinstall repair – can I safely delete the Windows old folder?

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Use the Disk Cleanup tool – run control panel, type disk cleanup in the search box, click on “free unnecessary ….” to run it. When the inital pass is complete, then click on the “Clean up system files” button. Select the categories you wish to remove.

--Joe

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Like Joe said, you can remove it using Disk Cleanup.

As to why it made another “Windows.old” folder? Well, think about it a moment… the reinstall program has to be prepared to “roll back” (without finalizing changes) if it runs into any unforeseen problems. It essentially works like the original upgrade.

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Windows will automatically remove the Windows.old folder a month after you upgrade, anyway.

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Thank you all – it worked just as predicted.

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