Deleting Windows.old folder

[Kirk Bubul]

I had a 36-hour dalliance with Windows 8. I unplugged my 1TB HDD,
plugged in my new SSD drive, and installed W8 Pro on my empty new SSD
drive. After a day, I hated W8, so I installed W7 Home Home Premium
on the SSD. In the process, W7 install created two backup files,
Windows.old and Windows.old.000 which contain a ton of files from W8.

Problem: How can I delete these old W8 system files? They are taking
space up on my SSD drive. As I try to delete these files I am in
administrator mode on my computer, but I get, at various times, one of
three different rejections:

"You require permission from SYSTEM to make changes to this folder"
OR
"You require permission from TrustedInstaller to make changes to this
folder"
OR
"You require Administrator permission to delete this folder"

My attempt to Google TrustedInstaller and act on what I found failed.

Question: How do I delete these folders?

Thanks in advance for any help.

 

[Jeff Layman]

I had a 36-hour dalliance with Windows 8. I unplugged my 1TB HDD,
plugged in my new SSD drive, and installed W8 Pro on my empty new SSD
drive. After a day, I hated W8, so I installed W7 Home Home Premium
on the SSD. In the process, W7 install created two backup files,
Windows.old and Windows.old.000 which contain a ton of files from W8.

Problem: How can I delete these old W8 system files? They are taking
space up on my SSD drive. As I try to delete these files I am in
administrator mode on my computer, but I get, at various times, one of
three different rejections:

"You require permission from SYSTEM to make changes to this folder"
OR
"You require permission from TrustedInstaller to make changes to this
folder"
OR
"You require Administrator permission to delete this folder"

My attempt to Google TrustedInstaller and act on what I found failed.

Question: How do I delete these folders?

Thanks in advance for any help.

Boot from a Linux Live CD and use the file manager on that to get rid of
all the stuff you don't want.

Or can you format the drive and reinstall W7 again? If there's nothing
on the drive after formatting, W7 wont create Windows.old folders.

 

[BillW50]

Boot from a Linux Live CD and use the file manager on that to get rid of
all the stuff you don't want.

Or can you format the drive and reinstall W7 again? If there's nothing
on the drive after formatting, W7 wont create Windows.old folders.

That should work, but you can use Disk Cleanup too. It will scan and
present you with a list. That folder won't be listed until you click the
"Clean up system files" button. Then it rescans again. Now it will be
shown and you can select and delete.

Btw, I didn't care much for Windows 8 much either at first. But I always
feel that way about any new OS. And my mind started changing when I
started to play with the thousands of free Metro Apps. And now I think
this is a new great world and I could really get used to this. ;-)

 

[dweebken]

Problem: How can I delete these old W8 system files? They are taking
space up on my SSD drive.

Disk Cleanup gives you the options to do this. Its built into Win 8 & Win 7

 

[Kirk Bubul]

On 23/11/2012 09:41, Kirk Bubul wrote:

Boot from a Linux Live CD and use the file manager on that to get rid of
all the stuff you don't want.

Or can you format the drive and reinstall W7 again? If there's nothing
on the drive after formatting, W7 wont create Windows.old folders.

I've tried formatting another drive from an elevated command prompt in
the CMD "DOS", and it didn't work.

I'm hesitant to use Linux; I'm pretty lost when I get into it. (But I
did use a Gparted booter to align my SSD drive.)

 

[Kirk Bubul]

That should work, but you can use Disk Cleanup too. It will scan and
present you with a list. That folder won't be listed until you click the
"Clean up system files" button. Then it rescans again. Now it will be
shown and you can select and delete.

Great help, here! Disk Cleanup worked fine to get rid of 14.2 GB of
old files. Your detailed explanation on how to click on the "Clean up
system files" button was key to my success. Thank you.

 

[Fokke Nauta]

I've tried formatting another drive from an elevated command prompt in
the CMD "DOS", and it didn't work.

I'm hesitant to use Linux; I'm pretty lost when I get into it. (But I
did use a Gparted booter to align my SSD drive.)

Did you need to align your SSD?
I had a clean install of W7 Pro x64 on my brandnew SSD and assumed that
Windows would take care of that.

Fokke

 

[Kirk Bubul]

Did you need to align your SSD?
I had a clean install of W7 Pro x64 on my brandnew SSD and assumed that
Windows would take care of that.

According to the pages (without a reference, dammit!) that I
downloaded from the Web, "How to migrate to a solid-state drive
without reinstalling Windows," you do.

But here's the test that they give to see if you are in alignment: In
Windows, find and run MSINFO32.exe. Go to Components>Storage>
Disks. Look for your SSD and find the "Partition Starting Offset. If
that number (mine was 1,048,576) is evenly divisible by 4,096 ,i.e.,
results in an integer, then your partition is correctly aligned. If
not, use Gparted to align it.

Ain't Google wonderful? Here's the URL:
http://lifehacker.com/5837543/how-to-migrate-to-a-solid+state-drive-without-reinstalling-windows

And here's another interpretation of the same procedure:
http://www.howtogeek.com/97242/how-to-migrate-windows-7-to-a-solid-state-drive/

 

[Fokke Nauta]

According to the pages (without a reference, dammit!) that I
downloaded from the Web, "How to migrate to a solid-state drive
without reinstalling Windows," you do.

But here's the test that they give to see if you are in alignment: In
Windows, find and run MSINFO32.exe. Go to Components>Storage>
Disks. Look for your SSD and find the "Partition Starting Offset. If
that number (mine was 1,048,576) is evenly divisible by 4,096 ,i.e.,
results in an integer, then your partition is correctly aligned. If
not, use Gparted to align it.

Ain't Google wonderful? Here's the URL:
http://lifehacker.com/5837543/how-to-migrate-to-a-solid+state-drive-without-reinstalling-windows

And here's another interpretation of the same procedure:
http://www.howtogeek.com/97242/how-to-migrate-windows-7-to-a-solid-state-drive/

Thanks, this is interesting.
I checked the partition starting offset of my SSD and it was 1,048,576
as well. So Windows aligned it well during installation.

I didn't migrate. On my PC I used to have XP, and decided to use W7 x64
on my new SSD, as XP can't handle this kind of drives properly. So I
performed a clean install.

Fokke

 

[J. P. Gilliver (John)]

In message <[email protected]>, BillW50 <[email protected]>
writes:
[]

Btw, I didn't care much for Windows 8 much either at first. But I
always feel that way about any new OS. And my mind started changing
when I started to play with the thousands of free Metro Apps. And now I
think this is a new great world and I could really get used to this. ;-)

I've been watching {how 8 has been greeted} with detached interest, and
I think you're the first person I've seen who likes the new interface.
It makes a refreshing change! (Especially from all those people who
hated it so much that they didn't even pause long enough to find you can
get back to something like the old desktop.)

(I have no axe to grind either way, being still on XP [and '98lite on
some machines]. Just interested to see how people are reacting.)
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

TV and radio presenters are just like many people, except they tend to wear
make-up all the time. Especially the radio presenters. - Eddie Mair, in Radio
Times 25-31 August 2012

 

[BillW50]

In J. P. Gilliver (John) typed:

In message <[email protected]>, BillW50 <[email protected]>
writes:
[]

Btw, I didn't care much for Windows 8 much either at first. But I
always feel that way about any new OS. And my mind started changing
when I started to play with the thousands of free Metro Apps. And
now I think this is a new great world and I could really get used to
this. ;-)

I've been watching {how 8 has been greeted} with detached interest,
and I think you're the first person I've seen who likes the new
interface. It makes a refreshing change! (Especially from all those
people who hated it so much that they didn't even pause long enough
to find you can get back to something like the old desktop.)

(I have no axe to grind either way, being still on XP [and '98lite on
some machines]. Just interested to see how people are reacting.)

I too have no axe to grind either. And I too use many OS here and some
new and some old. And Windows 8 does everything that Windows 7 does
(minus the Start Button), plus tons more. There are even features in the
Windows 8 desktop that it does better than Windows 7 as well. And I
really see no real reason to dislike Windows 8 for Windows 7 at all. ;-)

 

[BillW50]

In J. P. Gilliver (John) typed:

In message<[email protected]>, BillW50<[email protected]>
writes:
[]

Btw, I didn't care much for Windows 8 much either at first. But I
always feel that way about any new OS. And my mind started changing
when I started to play with the thousands of free Metro Apps. And
now I think this is a new great world and I could really get used to
this. ;-)

I've been watching {how 8 has been greeted} with detached interest,
and I think you're the first person I've seen who likes the new
interface. It makes a refreshing change! (Especially from all those
people who hated it so much that they didn't even pause long enough
to find you can get back to something like the old desktop.)

(I have no axe to grind either way, being still on XP [and '98lite on
some machines]. Just interested to see how people are reacting.)

I too have no axe to grind either. And I too use many OS here and some
new and some old. And Windows 8 does everything that Windows 7 does
(minus the Start Button), plus tons more. There are even features in the
Windows 8 desktop that it does better than Windows 7 as well. And I
really see no real reason to dislike Windows 8 for Windows 7 at all. ;-)

Here is just one feature I really love in Windows 8 and wished it was
there since the start of Windows. or any GUI really. And Windows 8 has
Win+Home which minimizes all windows except the one in the foreground. I
have no idea why this feature hasn't been implemented for so long.

 

[Rodney Pont]

Here is just one feature I really love in Windows 8 and wished it was
there since the start of Windows. or any GUI really. And Windows 8 has
Win+Home which minimizes all windows except the one in the foreground. I
have no idea why this feature hasn't been implemented for so long.

It does that in Win 7.

 

[..winston]

Windows key + Home does the same in Windows 7
- Minimizes/Restores all other windows


--
....winston
msft mvp


"BillW50" wrote in message
Here is just one feature I really love in Windows 8 and wished it was
there since the start of Windows. or any GUI really. And Windows 8 has
Win+Home which minimizes all windows except the one in the foreground. I
have no idea why this feature hasn't been implemented for so long.

 

[BillW50]

Windows key + Home does the same in Windows 7
- Minimizes/Restores all other windows

Really? What version of Windows 7? I tried it under Windows XP Pro and
Windows 7 Home Premium and nothing happened.

 

[BillW50]

Really? What version of Windows 7? I tried it under Windows XP Pro and
Windows 7 Home Premium and nothing happened.

OH! I think I know why! I am running AstonShell and not Explorer Shell
like you are, I bet. And I bet that hotkey combo isn't emulated under
Aston. I would be running AstonShell too under Windows 8, but so far
Windows 8 doesn't allow modifying the shell like it allows in previous
versions. But I can at least run Aston (Start) Menu, Panels, and
Widgets. ;-)

 

[BillW50]

It does that in Win 7.

Thanks Rodney... I'm usually running under AstonShell and not using the
default Windows 7 desktop. And that one isn't implemented under Aston.

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

It does that in Win 7.

I was going to say it doesn't work here, but...

When the Dialog main window has the focus it doesn't do anything, but I
tried it with other windows having the focus (including this Dialog
composition window!) and it works.

Strange...

Anyway, thanks for the info - I'll try to remember it in the future.