A nice addition to the new Windows 10 operating system is the fact. This saves all user files, settings and programs. Unfortunately, this comes at a very high cost in the form of depriving some of the hard drive space. Yes, there is a folder called Windows.old that stores the old version. So the 10th generation can quite easily return to the user everything that he had before the installation.
However, the old folder is huge in size, as it takes a lot of data to roll back correctly. Many users wish to delete such a folder. Well, in fact, Windows 10 looks so great, and all the bugs are likely to be fixed in the not too distant future. Thus, the question arises, how to delete this already unnecessary old folder in order to give the system free breathing and not store an impressive pile of old junk? On this score, there is a certain simple sequence of actions.
Getting rid of the old
The old folder on the computer is formed if the user automatically switched from Windows 7 or 8 to 10 series. Also, it can occur if you perform a clean install without formatting the hard drive. Often it eats away at several gigabytes, which are very valuable at the current cost of hard drives.
It should be remembered that if you rub the old folder on your computer, you won't be able to painlessly return from Windows 10 to your old system.
So this decision should be approached extremely carefully. So, if all doubts are swept away, then:
- Press Win + R on the keyboard, which launches a special Run window.
- Enter the command in the window that appears: cleanmrg and click on OK.
- Thus, the standard disk cleanup starts.
- In the window that appears, click on the Clean up system files button.
In this simple way, you can delete a folder called Windows.old. But Windows 10 is a cunning system full of unpleasant surprises. Therefore, in some cases, you can simply not delete the old folder for reasons not clear to the user. In this case, there are countermeasures.
If it didn't work right away
We open a wonderful command line interface, which always helps out in difficult times. Naturally, you need to do this under administrator rights. Next, enter the command: RD / S / Q C: \ windows.old. Of course, this folder must be located on the C drive. Press Enter and wait for the result.
There is another way to delete the old folder. To do this, you should:
- Launch Task Scheduler, which can be opened via search.
- In the list of tasks that opens, find the SetupCleanupTask.
- Right-click on this task and select Run from the drop-down menu.
At the end of the process, the old folder should be gone forever.
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The situation is funny: on the one hand, Microsoft developers claim that since the transition of all Windows operating systems to the NT kernel, the stability of the system has increased tenfold. It is argued that you can forget about the persistent "blue screens of death", better known as BSOD; freezes of the entire computer due to one "frozen" running process; and many other "goodies" that promise the user long-term stable operation of the system.
But on the other hand, everything looks a little different: Microsoft's promises of new mechanisms for working with memory have been fully fulfilled, but although the reliability has become higher than that of the Windows 9x line, it is still insufficient. This is indirectly evidenced by the question "how to remove old Windows" that is often asked on the Internet. The operating system still has to be reinstalled periodically. She "lives" for years only for those users who are limited to work in office applications, listening and viewing multimedia files and using a small number of other programs. Usually these are newbies who will not even launch the update once again. In contrast, experienced users who are not afraid to experiment with new programs sometimes have to figure out old Windows.
Removing the old Windows system is required in two main cases: the transition to the need to reinstall due to inability to boot or abnormal operation of applications. The question "how to remove the old Windows 7" sounds much less frequently than for Win XP. This is due to the foresight of Microsoft, which has implemented a convenient mechanism for installing a new system over the old one. There are three ways to uninstall the legacy system.
The first one is applicable for Win 7, but not suitable for Win XP. It is enough to insert the CD with the installation distribution into the drive and start the installation process. At one of the stages, a message will appear that an old system has been detected, which will be saved in the Windows.old folder. As a result, nothing important will be erased, and old system folders and files will be moved. There is access to them, so it is quite easy to restore your documents, save games and other information. You can delete the Windows.old directory afterwards.
Despite the obviousness, the question "how to remove old Windows" is still asked. Therefore, you can use the second method. It is quite specific and not available to everyone, but, nevertheless, it exists. You should boot from another hard drive, then there will be no problems with how to remove the old Windows, because the hard drive with the old system is visible in Explorer, and any directory on it can be deleted. Usually, two stationary hard drives are rarely kept in a computer (with the exception of RAID), but on an external system it is sometimes installed by some users.
The third, universal method is to boot from a CD or flash drive (a very popular option) a special reduced version of Windows - Windows PE. It is very limited in functionality, for example, support for full-fledged sound and video, although possible, is fraught with certain difficulties, therefore it is rarely implemented.
At the same time, work with the file system is possible in full. You can download LiveCD from torrent trackers. There are many of its assemblies made by enthusiasts based on Win PE. It often includes programs for working with hard disk partitions, tests of the computer's hardware components, and some other applications. After booting the prepared disk (flash drive) LiveCD, it is recommended to erase the old Windows. Sometimes the hard drive may not appear in the PE system. To solve this, change the operating mode of the disk subsystem from AHCI to IDE in the BIOS. If you cannot erase because of access rights, you can change them (Folder Options - Security - Advanced).
If the user does not know how to remove the old Windows 7 activator, then this can be done most simply and correctly in the activator installer itself. Usually, all such programs have a clear understanding of which it will not be difficult. Before that, do not forget to disable software protection in services (Control Panel - Administrative Tools - Services).
I decided today to prepare a short article in which to talk about how to remove one Windows system from a computer on which you have installed two operating systems, for example, Windows 8 and Windows 7. I already wrote an article on how to do this correctly. This article can be considered a small supplement.
It is clear that if you installed two operating systems on your computer, for example, in order to test Windows 8, then sooner or later, you will want to remove one of the systems. Either leave the fresh eight and uninstall Windows 7, or vice versa, uninstall Windows 8.
I don't see much point in keeping two systems on the computer. Although, now hard drives are of such volume that you can put ten about ten 🙂. But, for example, on my 120GB SSD, this is not very correct. Therefore, when you have already checked everything and decided, the question arises, how to remove Windows 7, or Windows 8. Now I will write how I did it.
You probably already thought, they say, what is difficult here, formatted the partition with the unnecessary system, and that's all. But not everything is so simple, the bootloader remains exactly the same. You also need to remove the system from the boot menu. There is nothing difficult in this, now I will demonstrate.
Completely remove Windows (if two systems are installed)
It is best to carry out the removal from the system that you decide to keep. I don’t know how important it is, but it’s better to do it this way.
For example, I decided to leave Windows 8 and show you how to uninstall Windows 7.
So, in this case, we carry out all actions from the eight. First, let's make our system, which we decided to keep, the main one (it should load by default), and then, remove the system we do not need from the boot.
Go to your desktop and press the keys Win + R... In the Run window, enter the command msconfig, and press OK.
In a new window, go to the tab, select the operating system that we want to keep (in our case, this is Windows 8), and click on the button Use as default (opposite the OS, the corresponding status “Bootable by default OS” should appear).
Now, select the system that we want to remove (in our case, this is WIndows 7), and click on the button Delete.
A window will appear, I advise you to choose.
The computer will reboot, and already without the possibility of choosing an operating system, the system that we left behind should boot immediately. In our case, this is Windows 8.
What to do with files from the old system?
Yes, all that remains is to deal with the partition on which the operating system used to be. The easiest way is to format it and store files on it.
Just be careful when you format the partition. Check its contents, there should be folders: Program Files, Windows, Users, etc. And it cannot be drive C, it will have a different letter.
Attention! Formatting will delete all information on the local drive. If we consider specifically our case, then all information that was stored on the local drive C will be deleted (desktop, folder my documents, my photos, etc.), in the operating system that we want to remove.
Second way.
You can delete a partition, and the free space that appears after deleting it can be added to the already existing partition. I don’t know how much this is a necessary procedure, because it’s much easier, just leave this section for storing files.
But, if you decide to remove it completely, then this can be done with a standard tool Disk management, which I wrote about in this article ““. Never mind that the article was written for Windows 7, on the eight, everything is exactly the same.
In Disk Management, right-click on the partition you want to delete and select “ Delete volume ...“.
Then, right-click on the partition to which you want to add memory from the deleted partition, and select Expand volume... Follow the instructions, everything is simple there.
Afterword
Here is such a proven way to remove the operating system if you have two or even more of them on your computer. I think that there shouldn't be any problems. The main thing is, be careful not to delete something wrong, or format the section with valuable information.
If anything, then ask your questions in the comments, I will try to help. Share information, perhaps you did this procedure somehow differently. Best wishes!
More on the site:
How do I uninstall one Windows operating system from a computer if two systems are installed? updated: February 6, 2018 by: admin
For many PC users, after updating or reinstalling Windows, the "Windows.old" directory appears, if, for example, you upgrade Windows 8 to Windows 10... This folder contains all files of the previous OS, as well as all files of users and programs. All this information takes up a lot of space on your hard drive. Depending on the amount of user data of the previous OS, in some cases this directory can reach tens of gigabytes. Therefore, we will try to understand this issue in detail.
The system keeps the previous version for further opportunity to return to it(execute the so-called Downgrade). As a rule, this feature is temporary, and if you do not use it, the folder will be deleted automatically.
Eight removal process
Let's consider an example of deleting the "Windows.old" directory after upgrading the seven to Windows 8. For this go to our local drives by clicking Win + E. Select the local disk with Windows installed and go to its properties, as shown in the figure.
In the disk properties window, click the button.
The Disk Cleanup analysis window should appear.
After that, the "Disk Cleanup (C :)" window will appear, where you should press the key Clean up system files.
If you click this button, the system will estimate the amount of files to be deleted, and we can go to the next window. Here you need to put one check mark, as shown in the figure.
In our case, the files of the previous OS are 7.92 GB... After the appropriate item is selected, you can safely press the OK button. Disk Cleanup will start, which will delete all files from the previous OS.
The process of deleting a folder in the top ten
Deleting a directory in a top ten is very similar to erasing a folder in a eight. We also go to the explorer. Select the local drive "C: /" and go to its properties.
We also click on the button.
After clicking on the button, we will see the same window as in the figure eight, only with a slightly different design.
Press the same key Clean up system files and go to the next window.
Select the same checkbox and press the OK button.
As you can see, the process is similar to the first one with the eighth version of Windows.... In this example, we have released 8,36 GB which is not a bad result.
It should also be remembered that when you delete the "Windows.old" directory, user data and files of installed programs are erased. The structure of subfolders with files from the previous OS is shown below.
These files can be multimedia data, Word or Excel documents. Therefore, before deleting this folder, you should save important data in it.
Deleting the Windows.old folder using CCleaner
The most optimal option is a program for cleaning the system. CCleaner... This program can be downloaded for free from the official website www.piriform.com/ccleaner. Installation of the program is quite simple and even a novice PC user can handle it. After starting the program, you should select in the "Cleaning" tab the item " Old Windows installation"As shown below.
Now click the Analysis button. This is necessary in order for CCleaner to analyze the files to be cleaned and display their complete list in the program window. In the figure below, a line is highlighted that contains files from the "Windows.old" directory.
After clicking the Clean button, the program will completely delete the files of the old OS.
Manual deletion
Now we will describe the process of deleting manually, that is, if you were to delete a directory with the Delete key. By deleting the folder using the Delete key, you can see this message.
This message means that we do not have permission to delete this directory. To correctly set the appropriate rights, go to the properties of the folder on the tab " Safety».
Now click the Advanced button. You should be taken to the additional security window for this folder.
As you can see from the figure, the owner of our folder is “ SYSTEM". Therefore, you need to select the owner of the user with which you logged in and click the Apply button. After applying the rights, you can delete "Windows.old" using the explorer with the Delete key.
Removal with TakeOwnershipPro
You can delete the "Windows.old" directory with a simple utility TakeOwnershipPro which you can download at http://www.top-password.com/download.html. After installing the utility it will appear as a separate item of the explorer context menu a. To delete a directory, go to the context menu for the folder to be deleted and select the item " TakeOwnershipPro».
After clicking, the program window will start, where scanning and assignment of rights for files and directories will be performed in order to remove them later.
Scanning can take two minutes or longer, depending on the size of the folder to be deleted. After waiting for the scan to complete, click the Take Ownership button. After that, the folder will be permanently deleted after about two minutes.
Conclusion
After reading this material, you should no longer have a question why I can not delete the "Windows.old" folder. By doing this, you will free up gigabytes of free space on your hard drive. I would also like to remind you that by deleting this directory, you delete all user data from the previous OS. Therefore, if necessary, you need to make backup copies of this data.
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In a situation where the computer starts to work slowly, the only correct way out among the recommendations for self-configuring the computer, you will find reinstalling the operating system, but this is not always done correctly, so then it becomes necessary to remove the old windows after installing the new one. Usually, the OS is installed on a clean partition, but if it so happens that you installed the new Windows operating system in the same place (on the same logical drive) as the old one, then it will automatically remove the files of the old operating system into a folder called “Windows.old ". After all the necessary files have been saved, the folder with the old OS can be deleted. Moreover, the space on the hard disk is never superfluous. This can be done in two ways.
Removal by means of Windows
Clearing the boot menu
After you have installed a new operating system in the same partition, you may have a problem in the form of a menu that prompts you to choose which OS to choose when booting. This problem is simple enough to solve.
- Click "Start";
- Type msconfig in the search bar;
- Select this program in the search results;
- In the next window go to the "Download" tab;
- Choose an old operating system;
- Click the "Delete" button, after which the program will inform you about the need to restart;
- Reboot your computer.
After all the above steps, the operating system will boot in normal mode and the menu with the choice of the operating system will no longer appear.
There is nothing difficult in how to remove old Windows installations, the main thing is to decide on the method of execution. Now you can start adjusting the sound on your computer, and setting up drivers, network and other things with peace of mind. Remember: in order to avoid the procedure for uninstalling previous versions of operating systems, it is recommended to install Windows on a pre-formatted partition. Thus, you will save your new operating system from garbage in the form of programs and files of the previous version of Windows.
