W10 1803 delete windows.old

[Det. Dave Starsky]

Hi I just downloaded the latest windows update version 1803..
It has left behind a windows.old folder thats almost 6gb..

This is safe to delete ?

Im running disk clean-up and was thinking that would show the folder and delete it..

Im sure I did this in the past with pervious installs and updates..

Am i doing something wrong or should windows.old be shown in disk clean-up ?

Thanks

[Det. Dave Starsky]

Many thanks for that, I had no idea that how it is now..

But..
I right click on windows.old and its says files size 5.66 GB, size on disk 5.70 GB

But 'free up space now' has info Previous Windows Installations(s) 27.5 GB

Are there like hidden files that wont show on right clicking to reveal the size of the folder ?

[Det. Dave Starsky]

I chose to delete the folder windows.old from the free up space now option

My ssd had 87.1 free space and now has 107 gb free
Thats 19.9 gb..

Im confused lol

But 20-ish gb more space rather than 5.70 is good.

TheDude님이 먼저 게시:

Alex Krycek님이 먼저 게시:

Many thanks for that, I had no idea that how it is now..

But..
I right click on windows.old and its says files size 5.66 GB, size on disk 5.70 GB

But 'free up space now' has info Previous Windows Installations(s) 27.5 GB

Are there like hidden files that wont show on right clicking to reveal the size of the folder ?

Windows hides some of the files under Windows.old but I don't know if that accounts for all of the files that make up the difference. Some might be in other folders. I don't worry about that much. I just make sure they're all deleted when I'm happy with an upgrade/update.

Yes, thanks for your help..
Im happy with the extra free space, maybe now I can transfer a game from my slave hdd to the ssd.

[OLDMAN]

Why don't you just Google delete windows.old.

[TehSpoopyKitteh]

TheDude님이 먼저 게시:

The new option for removing the old Windows folder is under Settings, System, Storage, Free up space now.

In other words, use the "Disk Cleanup" utility built into Windows 10....Click on "Clean up system files", slesct the files you want to delete (including the Windows.old folder), click OK and yes when promted...and wait.


https://imgur.com/a/U6O5WG2?desktop=1


You will have more control over what is deleted.

[TehSpoopyKitteh]

TheDude님이 먼저 게시:

The Spoopy Kitteh님이 먼저 게시:

In other words, use the "Disk Cleanup" utility built into Windows 10....Click on "Clean up system files", slesct the files you want to delete (including the Windows.old folder), click OK and yes when promted...and wait.


https://imgur.com/a/U6O5WG2?desktop=1

I described the new method for doing that. Both methods work.

Old method has more control over what gets deleted.

[Vince ✟]

All good suggestions I'd guess.

You could do it a myriad of ways. CCleaner, PowerShell, disk cleanup,


I just run disk cleanup once a week.

[TehSpoopyKitteh]

TheDude님이 먼저 게시:

The Spoopy Kitteh님이 먼저 게시:

Old method has more control over what gets deleted.

There are also monitoring tools for clean up built in now. You know, for more control.

Yes, and they mess with the registry...something that should never be done. Last time we went through this you said "Only if you use it to clean the registry."

[Buck]

Alex Krycek님이 먼저 게시:

I right click on windows.old and its says files size 5.66 GB, size on disk 5.70 GB

This is normal and has to do with the disk sector size of your particular HDD. A Sector is the smallest unit of storage on a disk. The standard sector size is 512 bytes. so let's say for example, you have a file that is 1.2KB. Since each sector is 512 bytes, you will need 3 512byte sectors to store the file. So that 1.2KB file ends up taking up 1.53KB. The larger the file you need to store gets, the more wasteful this smal lsector size becomes.

Basically, the size on disk will pretty much always be larger then the size of the actual files. Newer disk use a larger 4K sector size which is more efficient with larger files. 4K disks do have the capability to "emulate" 512byte (by splitting a 4K sector into 8 512bye legacy sectors) for compatibility purposes.

If you are using RAID volumes or software volume management (like Linux LVM) then things like the stripe size can also impact actual disk space usage too.

But 'free up space now' has info Previous Windows Installations(s) 27.5 GB

Are there like hidden files that wont show on right clicking to reveal the size of the folder ?

Yes and no. hidden files won't show on the directory listing, but the space they use should be reported regardless. There's other stuff besides the actual Windows folder from the previous installation that can be removed, like the old registry, old user account files, etc etc etc.

Vince님이 먼저 게시:

I just run disk cleanup once a week.

Not harmful, but not really helpful either. you may actually be promoting wear and tear on your disk by forcing it to do more work then it might be doing otherwise. This is part of the reason why defrags are run conservatively unless fragmentation is really bad.

[Buck]

TheDude님이 먼저 게시:

Not to be rude, but most of this is not accurate.

That's not an argument or a rebuttal. put up or shut up.

[Buck]

Oh, this should be fun.

TheDude님이 먼저 게시:

I think you misunderstood the first point about how much space the files take on disk.

No, I didn't.

He was questioning why he can only see 5GB of files when more then 20GB of files exist when tools are used to check instead of just listing file/directory size.

That was a different question.

For the second point, hidden/system files where one doesn't have the rights needed to scan the folder, will not show the file size for those hidden/system files. It's just a simple matter of not being able to access the files to begin with.

No. Hidden files still exist and still take up space, they are simply not shown on the directory listing unless you choose to unhide hidden files.

For the third point, running a disk clean up weekly (heck, even daily) is not going to wear out any drive. Be it SSD or HDD.

I didn't say the thing would blow up in a week, but ANY activity is wear and tear. This is why I said "may" not and "will"

[Bad 💀 Motha]

No needs to do any "new" method; it's done the same ways as its always been done since Win2k/XP; Disk Cleanup (ran via the Run As Admin option) then click "Show all System Files" if that option is there.

[Skinnydredd]

FYI, 1803 introduced a bug [www.google.com] (aka feature) that is probably tied to long file names and it can report vastly different sizes in folder and file properties compared to the small differences people usually expect as the reasons for the differences.



This, BTW is one of the reasons you may want to hold off on deleting that folder. It has the previous version of Windows in case you need to revert back due to an issue.

[TehSpoopyKitteh]

sflesch님이 먼저 게시:

FYI, 1803 introduced a bug [www.google.com] (aka feature) that is probably tied to long file names and it can report vastly different sizes in folder and file properties compared to the small differences people usually expect as the reasons for the differences.



This, BTW is one of the reasons you may want to hold off on deleting that folder. It has the previous version of Windows in case you need to revert back due to an issue.

That "bug" got revised before release of 1803 went mainstream.

[240KMH PEEK]

no 1803 version may be corrupted you can not turn back I can not play the game for example so save it but if there is no problem on your computer you can delete it

[TehSpoopyKitteh]

Glemsi님이 먼저 게시:

no 1803 version may be corrupted you can not turn back I can not play the game for example so save it but if there is no problem on your computer you can delete it

Occasionally with major updates, you have to reset previous settings to how you had them manually. They are reset to default for everal reasons.

I myself prefer using the old Blank DVD installation method.