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

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mitchellvii

mitchellvii

Well-Known Member
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.
 
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mitchellvii

mitchellvii

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

gleth

New Member
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 :)
 

ScottyS

Active Member
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).
 
"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?
 
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ScottyS

Active Member
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.
 
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