WARNING: windows.old folder

[Ty Moore]

So i was cleaning of my hdd and i realised something was taking up 16.9 gb of data that i could get rid of and when i clicked "clean up" it came up with a message that said "Risk: The windows.old folder contains all files and apps from the previous windows installation". So i have one 1 tb hdd i use for stuff and another 500 gb ssd, so does this mean i would lose all my apps and stuff from my hhd, if i got rid of this "windows.old folder"?

 

[Dunlop0078]

Did you upgrade from win 7 to 10 or something? If so it contains a copy of your old windows 7 install. No deleting that folder wont delete anything you currently have on any of your drives, it will just delete that copy of win 7 or whatever it was.

 

[gasaraki]

Run the built in windows disk cleanup tool. Click the 'Clean System Files' button. Check the clean old window files line item. It should safely delete the .old folder.

 

[ledhead11]

You can delete it but the new way that 10 does build updates it will return at some point. They've stated that build updates are supposed to occur roughly every six months via update. Depending on 32/64bit versions I've seen the build updates range in 4-8GB since the anniversary update.

The reason that it does this is in case a new build fails for some reason it will revert back to the old one until it can successfully install(or at least what it considers successful).

Also as Dunlop0078 stated that if you upgraded from a previous version(7/8/etc.) it then get created too.

 

[Colif]

The windows.old folders created by version updates should only last 10 days now before deleting itself.

 

[ledhead11]

The windows.old folders created by version updates should only last 10 days now before deleting itself.

Cool, didn't know that!