The Windows.old folder contains the previous version of Windows on your device. If you want to remove the previous version after you upgrade, the easiest method is to use Storage sense in the Settings app. Follow the steps below for your version of the Windows operating system.
Remove previous Windows installations after a Windows 10 Upgrade free up disk space
The size of the Windows operating system that comes with your device and the amount of space needed to download and install Windows updates, are highly variable as they depend on a variety of factors. Visit here to learn why. The factors that impact the amount of free hard drive space needed to take an update include: the versions of Windows previously installed on the machine, the amount of disk space available to reuse from Windows files, such as the virtual memory pagefile or hibernation file, which applications are installed on your device and how those applications store data. Starting with the May 2019 Update, the system requirements for hard drive size for clean installs of Windows 10 as well as new PCs changed to a minimum of 32GB. The 32GB or larger drive requirement is set to leave space for users to install apps and to keep data on the device. Installing Windows or updating from a previous version of Windows on devices with less than 32GB storage will continue to work if the device has enough free space available. When updating, Windows will attempt to automatically free up enough hard drive space and guide you through freeing up even more if the automatic cleanup is not sufficient. You can also take steps to free up space on your own. For more information, see Free up space to install the latest Windows 10 update or visit the related FAQ.
The caveat is that the copy will be stored on your computer (inside the "Windows.old" folder) even after the upgrade is completed without problems, wasting a lot of valuable space. If you delete these files, you can free up somewhere in the 20GB range, which may not be significant for devices with large drives, but it could be an issue for devices with limited storage.
If you notice that your laptop or desktop computer is running out of space after the upgrade, Windows 11 includes an option to delete the previous files that can reclaim 12GB or more, depending on the previous configuration.
Files from a previous Windows Installation. Files and folders that may conflict with the installation of Windows have been moved to folders named Windows.old. You can access data from the previous installations in this folder. Once you remove this, 26.3 GB in my case, I can easily perform the next Windows 10 build upgrade !!
Ten days after you upgrade to Windows 10, your previous version of Windows will be automatically deleted from your PC. If your drive is low in space, you can manually delete the previous version of Windows installation. This article describes 3 ways to delete Windows installation files on Windows 10 PC.
Windows .old folder contains a copy of the previous Windows installation in C: disk, and it takes up much of storage. It can free up several GBs of disk space by using the Remove previous Windows installations option in Disk Cleanup Tool.
In Windows 10 Preview, every time when upgrading to a new build release, Windows will automatically keeps a backup of its existing OS prior upgrade so when things go wrong with the installation you can always have the option to rollback to the previous release. The backup is stored under Windows.old folder of your root Windows OS partition. While this is a welcome feature by Microsoft, you are also losing disk space ranging from a few GB to 25GB, which could be very precious on a Tablet like Surface or a SSD drive.
it worked perfect. for those whose previous windows installments is not appearing after cleaning 2 or 3 times it will appear.if it does not appear it means you have deleted some of the important content,,,,,,,,Worst case scenario-format c drive and install a new copy of windows and backup all imp files
Windows 11 has been available for a few months now, and it's a free upgrade that we definitely recommend in our Windows 11 review. But if you recently upgraded to Windows 11 from Windows 10, or if you install a big update for Windows 11 in the future, you might notice that there's quite a bit of disk space being taken up on your PC all of a sudden, and you may want to free it up.
The reason for this is that Windows keeps a copy of the system files from your old Windows installation. That way, if you run into any problems after the upgrade, you can roll back to the previous version and get things back to normal. But if you haven't had any issues and you need the free space, you can delete the old files after upgrading to Windows 11.
And that's all you need to know to free up space on your PC after upgrading to Windows 11. This only really applies to upgrades using Windows Update, so if you followed our guide to install Windows 11 using an ISO, you'll have as much free space as you can get. If you're interested in other helpful Windows 11 tips, maybe check out how to generate a battery report so you know how your laptop's battery is doing.
The previous Windows installation files present in Windows.old folder usually takes at least 10 GB of disk space. So, after upgrading to a new build of Windows 10, you can delete the Windows.old folder to free up a good amount of drive space.
Windows.old folder will be deleted automatically after a month you upgrade. That's to say, you do not need to manually delete this folder if your disk space is enough. But if your disk is in a low disk space, you can delete Windows.old whether in Windows 10/8/7.
What matters the most is the disk space that Windows.old folder occupies. When I upgraded my Windows 10 from version 1703 to 1709, the size of Windows.old folder was 38 GB. If you are not worried about disk space, then you could just leave the folder as it is. Windows will automatically delete the Windows.old folder after a month.
When you click OK, before cleaning up previous windows installation you get a warning box. It tells you that deleting these files will not allow to restore your machine back to previous version. Click Yes and wait for disk cleanup to clean Windows.old folder.
By default, Windows 10 gives you ten days to roll back major upgrades. After ten days, Windows deletes those old files to free up disk space. This is a change from the initial versions of Windows 10, which gave you 30 days to decide.
Windows 10 systems are now coming with SSDs configured, and in order to get the full benefit of the SSD, the OS has to be installed on it. Unfortunately, SSDs are expensive and come in smaller configurations than hard drives. Keeping enough free disk space on the drive is a bit hard but not impossible. Keep an eye on the Recycle bin and the Downloads folder as well, and remove files from them regularly.
The Disk Cleanup is a powerful and easy to use tool to remove the useless files and free up disk space on your Windows 7,8 or 10 based computer. The advantage of the disk cleanup utility is that it can remove all the temporary install and upgrade log files, that are created by Windows during upgrading or updating the operating system, plus the files from the previous Windows versions (e.g. the "Windows.Old" folder).
If you do not reclaim disk space after freeing up space inside Windows, the VM size will remain the same. To automate the reclaim procedure you can enable Real-time Disk Optimization (TRIM) feature which is designed to compact the virtual hard disk automatically in the background while the virtual machine is running.
If you recently upgraded to a new version of Windows, you may have noticed a huge folder called Windows.old on your hard drive. This folder contains a copy of the previous version of Windows in case you need to roll back your upgrade. Windows.old is automatically deleted 10 days after the upgrade (or 28 days for older versions), but you can delete it early if you're running low on disk space and are 100% sure you won't want to go back. This wikiHow article will show you 3 easy ways to remove Windows.old: Using the Storage area of your Settings, the Disk Cleanup tool, and the Command Prompt.
Disk Cleanup is a tool built within Windows OS. It is designed to free up disk space on any drive on your device. It does this by determining which files are not being used constantly. It then shows you a list of these files and you get to decide whether to keep them or remove them.
No. Windows 11 and Windows 10 require approximately the same amount of disk space. During the upgrade process, however, extra space is required. Windows will clean up this extra disk space about 10 days after the upgrade is complete.
Simply run the following command.RD /S /Q %SystemDrive%\windows.oldPlease note that it may take a few minutes to complete. Do not close the command prompt window until you get the next prompt.Remove previous Windows installation using command lineIf you do not delete the Windows.old folder, it will automatically be deleted by Storage Sense after 10 days of installation. If you are a fan of CCleaner, it can also clean up the previous Windows installation folder. 2ff7e9595c
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