Windows.old Folder - Delete

How to Delete the Windows.old Folder in Windows 7​

   Information

If you performed repair install, upgrade install, or a custom install without formatting the drive for a clean install and selected to install Windows 7 on the same partition of the previous Windows installation, then you may have a C:\Windows.old folder left over in your new installation.

If you already had a C:\Windows.old folder in the installation that you performed a repair install, upgrade install, or a custom install on, then it would be renamed to say C:\Windows.old.000 (older previous installation) in addition to the C:\Windows.old folder. The most recent previous installation will always be in the C:\Windows.old folder.

This will show you how to delete the Windows.old folder(s) generated during the installation to free up the hard drive space that the Windows.old folder(s) takes.

   Note

The C:\Windows.old folder contains folders and files from the previous Windows installation. Be sure to copy any files or data that you may still want to keep to another location before deleting this folder.

   Tip

For how to

restore a Windows 7-based computer to a previous Windows installation by using the Windows.old folder, see: How to restore a Windows 7-based computer to a previous Windows installation by using the Windows.old folder

   Warning

Be sure to copy any files that you want out of the Windows.old folder before you delete it. Once deleted, they are gone.

You must logged in as an administrator to be able to do the steps in this tutorial.

EXAMPLE: Windows.old Folder
NOTE: Notice how much space this folder uses.

OPTION ONE

Delete "Windows.old" Folder Using Disk Cleanup

1. Open Disk Cleanup.
2. If prompted, select the Windows 7 C: drive, and click on OK. (see screenshot below)
NOTE: You will only see this if you have more than one HDD or partition with a drive letter.

3. Click on the Clean up system files button. (see screenshot below)

4. If prompted by UAC, then click on Yes.

5. Repeat step 2 above.

6. Check the Previous Windows installations box, and click on OK. (see screenshot below)

7. Click on Delete Files. (see screenshot below)

8. When Disk Cleanup finishes, the C:\Windows.old folder(s) will be deleted.

OPTION TWO

Delete "Windows.old" Folder Using Elevated Command Prompt

1. Open a Elevated command prompt.

2. In the elevated command prompt, copy and paste the command below, and press Enter. (see screenshot below)
NOTE: If you had another say windows.old.000 folder that you also wanted to delete, then you could repeat this command substituting that name instead to also delete it.
RD /S /Q %SystemDrive%\windows.old


3. Close the command prompt.

OPTION THREE

Delete "Windows.old" Folder Using Command Prompt at Boot

NOTE: This would be a good option to do if OPTION ONE or OPTION TWO was unable to delete your C:\Windows.old folder.
1. Open the Disk Management (diskmgmt.msc), and make note of the name (ex: none) and total size (ex: 126 GB) of your Windows 7 drive. (see screenshot below)
NOTE: You will need to know this in step 3C.

2. Using either you Windows 7 installation DVD or system repair disc, boot to a command prompt at boot (click on link for how).

3. To Verify the Windows 7 Drive Letter at Boot
NOTE: The Windows 7 drive letter may not always be C: at boot like it is while Windows is started, so be sure to verify it's drive letter before doing the command in step 4 for it to work.
A) In the command prompt, type diskpart and press enter. (see screenshot below)

B) In the command prompt, type list volume and press enter. (see screenshot below)

C) From the listed volumes, look for and verify the drive letter (ex: D: ) of your Windows 7 drive (ex: 126 GB w/ no name). (see screenshot below)

D) In the command prompt, type exit and press enter. (see screenshot below)

4. To Delete the "Windows.old" Folder
A) In the command prompt, type the command below and press enter. (see screenshot below)
NOTE: Be sure to substitute D in the command below with the actual drive letter of your Windows 7 drive as displayed from step 3 above instead. If you had another say windows.old.000 folder that you also want to delete, then you could repeat this command substituting that name instead of Windows.old to also delete it.
RD /S /Q "D:\Windows.old"
B) Close the command prompt window.

5. Click on the Restart button to restart the computer and start Windows 7, and to verify that the Windows.old folder has been deleted.

That's it,
Shawn

Related Tutorials

---

• How to Restore your Windows.old Folder into a New Installation
• How to Do a Custom Installation of Windows 7
• How to Delete a Folder from the Command Prompt
• How to Free Up and Recover Hard Drive Space in Windows 7

 

[Brink]

Ok. See if you can delete it after taking ownership of, and allowing yourself "Full Control" of it. You may need to do this in Safe Mode.

 

[Mike89]

Already did that. Maybe something do do with SecuRom.

 

[stevelew47]

Great answer!

Thanks for the information! This really helps totally. When I use install Windows I had to format the disc using FDisk or something like that. I even had to go back to my DOS 3.1 floppies. It has changed with Win 7.

 

[Akpsp]

Thanks for the tut! i have more space now.

 

[Whiim]

Thanks for the tutorial!

 

[Aaron7pm]

I might be mistakened but I believe that the Windows.old folder has no additional permissions applied to it...you should be able to just delte the folder like any other

takes longer to do than this method

 

[BLED]

wow 60 gigs!

 

[Brink]

Wow, that is a bunch.

 

[murphy25]

i can beat it,just installed 7 on my daughters desktop and was getting the could not boot from disk error 5 (it needed a bios update)but instead of messing around with that installed 7 from within xp and did a custom install and was left with a windows old of 90.3 gb .
i thought it would take ages to get rid of that lot but only took a few minutes.

 

[coldy]

I remember seeing this ages ago and totally for got about doing it.
work well brink thanks for the cool tutorial

 

[ForeverZero89]

about reinstalling programs that you have in your windows.old: can't you just go to program files and do a cut/paste into your current program files? or is there more to it than that?

 

[Brink]

Hello ForeverZero,

Yes, there is much more than that. Programs must be reinstalled for them to run properly. They cannot be copied back. Sorry.

 

[timothyhuang]

I just right-clicked on the folder, and deleted it without any trouble.

 

[dimmy87]

Thanks so much for this tutorial,I got rid of 20GB

 

[Brink]

You're most welcom Dimmy.

 

[elisedai]

Brink, is this method something that you can use to delete the my_backup-date-time directories that were created by the system restore volume that came w/my Gateway GT5040? I had 2 pre-existing instances of that on my machine b4 doing that custom upgrade fm XP sp3 to Win7 Home Premium...

Great job. Once backed up, the windows.old is gonna be history- hello more disk space, goodbye wasted time w/virus-scanning, needless backup, etc.

Thanks again for your tutorials- elisedai

 

[Brink]

Hello Elisedai,

No, it's not the same for the Backup folders. You would want to use these instead for that.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/628-backup-user-system-files-delete-backups.html

and

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/632-backup-user-system-files-reset-default-configuration.html

Hope this helps,
Shawn

 

[Mike89]

If you had any games on the computer with the previous OS that used "SecuRom" DRM, it screws thing up a bit when trying to delete the Windows.Old folder on the new OS. The folder will be emptyed except for a couple of SecuRom entries in "C:\Windows.old\Users\xxx\AppData\Roaming\SecuROM\UserData" that look like Arabic text. These remaining entires cannot be deleted. Everything in the Windows.Old folder is gone (except the two SecuRom entries) so the Windows.Old folder itself cannot be deleted.


Update: Unlocker 1.9.0 successfully got rid of those pesky SecuRom files. Just right click on Windows.Old, choose Unlocker, choose the Delete option. The whole folder is gone.

 

[jaykan]

Excellent tute! 30.9 GB claimed back! Thanks a lot!

 

[ElJefe]

It didn't work for me, Windows.old is still grinning at me