Points I need to know with absolute certainty

[davidhk129]

Here is what I understand.......

I should create a Recovery USB first before deleting Windows.old.
It is because deleting Windows.old will also delete the Recovery Partition.
If I do a Refresh option ( after deleting Windows.old ), it will tell me files are missing and I need a recovery media to continue. Hence the Recovery USB.

Are the above correctly ?

 

[clifford_cooley]

1. Windows.old is a copy of the old Windows during the creation of a clean install.
   
2. Removing Windows.old will destroy any chance of falling back to the previous OS. That is unless you have a system image of the old OS created.
3. Windows.old does not contain recovery partition files or information. If you upgraded and did not manually destroy the Recovery Partition it should still exist.
4. I'm not sure what you mean by refresh, unless you are referring to falling back on the old Windows OS. In that case see line 2 above.

 

[Dipsy]

According to Microsoft it appears the Windows Old file is only good for 28 days. http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-8/restore-files-upgrade-windows-old.

 

[clifford_cooley]

Thanks Dipsy, I didn't realize there was also a deadline involved.

 

[Dipsy]

I just discovered something odd. When I fubarred my Win 10 install I put my Win 8.1 drive back in and formatted the fubarred Win 10. Did a clean install of Win 10 build 9926 on what should have been a totally blank SSD. Just now got curious and looked in file explorer and discovered a Windows Old folder. It was empty except for a recycle bin. Inside the bin are a bunch of temporary files and one 10.2GB System Backup folder dated 2014 10 08. The same folder is in the current install's recycle bin. My backups are kept on a separate drive and after setting up the new install I deleted the 2014 backup file from the drive since I knew I wouldn't need it. For some reason it looks like Windows put the deleted file in both recycle bins.

 

[clifford_cooley]

Could it have been the two listing was a link to the same location?