Erase Windows.old Folder on Windows 10 & 11
Summary: When you upgrade or reinstall windows, a folder called Windows.old is created, which stores the copy of your previous installation. It can be useful for restoring your system. As it takes a lot of your space. So, it is suggested to delete the folder in order to free up disk space if it’s not required. In this article, we are going to show how to erase Windows.old folder on Windows 10 and 11.
How to Delete Windows.old Permanently – Know the Reasons
There are various reasons behind erase Windows.old folder which we are going to address in the below points:
- As, this Windows.old folder can take up 25 GB or more space. If you delete this folder, it can free up your storage space.
- There could be another aspect of deleting this folder. Like, you are satisfied or want to stick with your current Windows version. There’s no point in keeping the backup.
- It can improve your overall performance, especially when your storage drive is full.
- Windows 11 and 10 automatically deletes the previous operating system folder after 10 days, but you can delete it sooner to free up your space to work fluently.
How to Erase Windows.old Folder on Windows 10 & 11 – Manual Methods
There are 3 manual methods which we are going to discuss in the steps below. Let’s know them one by one in the following section.
#1. Delete Windows.old Folder Using Storage Settings
1. Firstly, press Windows + I to open the settings or gear icon which is present in your Windows start menu.
2. Navigate to System, then click on the Storage present in the sidebar.
3. Under the Local Disk C drive, find and click on temporary files.
4. Now, check the box for Previous Windows Installation which is Windows.old folder.
5. Confirm by clicking on remove files to delete the folder and free up the storage space.
#2. How to Erase Windows.old Folder Through Disk Cleanup
Here, we are going to delete the Windows.old folder using this utility and it can work on various versions of Windows.
1. Press Windows + S Key to open Disk cleanup.
2. Choose your system drive (usually C:).
3. Then, click on “Clean up system files”.
4. select the drive again to clean up.
5. Now, check “Previous Windows installations” from the list.
6. At last, click on OK to confirm the deletion process.
#3. Remove Windows.old Folder Using Command Prompt
- Firstly, press Windows + X and select Command Prompt (Admin) or Windows Terminal (Admin).
- To take authority of the folder, you need to type the following command and press Enter.
takeown /F “C:\Windows.old” /A /R /D Y
- Replace “C” with the correct drive letter if needed.
- Type this command to change permissions in order to allow deletion and press Enter.
>>> icacls “C:\Windows.old” /grant *S-1-5-32-544:F /T /C /Q <<<
- Now, type this RD command to delete the folder and press Enter.
RD /S /Q C:\Windows.old
- As, this will permanently remove the Windows.old folder.
How to Erase Windows.old Folder – Complete Deletion
As manual deletion is not that effective solution for complete data removal. So, to free up disk space and ensure that your data is permanently erased, you can use SysTools Data Erasure Software. It guarantees you secure file deletion, ensuring that your sensitive data can’t be recovered without the need of a physical destruction method such as degaussing. It also ensures that no traces are left behind from the old installation.
Features of this Tool:
- Connected with more than 20+ global standards such as GLBA, FERPA, CJIS, and more.
- Have the ability to wipe data from multiple storage devices like erase hard disk drive, wipe SSD drive, NVMe and M.2 drive, etc.
- Cleans up your caches, logs, temporary files, and other application traces.
Conclusion
In this article, we have discussed how this Windows.old folder is useful after an OS upgrade but takes significant space. If you don’t want to go to the older version, by deleting you can free up the space and improve performance. Also, we have discussed how to erase Windows.old folder using manual methods like storage settings, Disk cleanup, or Command prompt to remove this folder efficiently.