Manually delete the Windows.old folder

[Trouble]

Trouble submitted a new article:

Manually delete the Windows.old folder - How to manually delete Windows.old.... IF that's really what you want to do.

Open File Explorer C:\ locate Windows.old, right click and choose properties

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Choose the Advanced button on the property dialog page

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Change Owner to your user account, which must be a member of the local administrators group, and Change permissions to include your user account explicitly

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When changing owner as well as when adding your account to permissions, step through the Select a principal routine and...

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[MrEd]

Crikey, sure is convoluted!

 

[Trouble]

OR you could just wait for the 30 days to elapse and Windows 10 should do it, itself.

 

[Ian]

Great article @Trouble . I've had to manually clear the Windows.old folder on a cheap tablet that had very limited storage space - I was surprised that is managed to complete the in place upgrade!

 

[Trouble]

Thanks, much appreciated.
As an "insider", with two separate instances of Windows 10 Preview, I find myself frequently, manually deleting the Windows.old as well as the $windows~bt folders, which usually between the two, reclaims somewhere around 15 gigabytes or so of hard disk space.
There are certainly other ways of doing it, with third party software or even the native cleanmgr.exe, but.....
I'm kinda old fashion when it comes to cleaning up this particular mess.
AND in general, the process of changing ownership and explicitly granting your user account full control of a folder or a file, can in some instances come in handy.
The process does not apply only to Windows.old it can be applied to any folder or file you might be having permission issues with, however......
Caution is forewarned.

 

[oldyeller38]

I have a question as relates to the deleing of the windows old file. Do I post here or create a new thread?

 

[Trouble]

Probably a better idea to post in one of the more generally viewed sub-forums like, Support or Installation Setup and Updates.

 

[miket82]

For the simples of this world, and I'm one of them, I just use a dual boot, find the folder and delete it.

 

[Saltgrass]

There is a new way to delete the Windows.old folder.

Settings-System and select storage. At the top of that page, select your drive which brings up a list of file types.

Go to the bottom and select Temporary Files. In the Temp files listing you should have a Previous version of Window option. Check the box and select remove files.... It takes a few minutes but seems to work well.

You will not show the Previous version of Windows option if you do not have a Windows.old folder...

 

[Trouble]

I'll give that one a try the next opportunity I get. Shouldn't be long on my preview machines.

 

[Data]

I prefer a more direct method, and here are three additional ways of achieving this.

Method 1

Method 2

Method 3

TAKEOWN /F C:\Windows.old /R /D Y
icacls C:\Windows.old /grant administrators:F /T
RD /S C:\Windows.old