One of our readers recently sent an email asking how to delete the Windows.old folder located in the system drive. As some of you know, the Windows.old folder is generated after performing custom Windows 7 installation (without formatting the existing installation) or when you upgrade from a previous version of Windows to Windows 7.
In other words, if you install Windows 7 on a Windows Vista or XP drive or if you have upgraded from Vista to Windows 7, Windows setup creates Windows.old folder in the root of Windows 7 installation drive.
The Windows.old folder contains folders and files that were used in the earlier version of Microsoft Windows that was installed. This Windows.old folder is very useful when you want retrieve some files like documents and pictures from your old Windows installation. Additionally, this folder comes in handy if you like to revert to the earlier version of Windows from your current version of Windows.
Related: How to delete Windows.old folder in Windows 10.
If you have no important files in Windows.old folder, you can delete it to retrieve the disk space. But the problem is that Windows doesn’t let you delete the folder by simply pressing the Delete key.You need to take the help of Disk Cleanup tool to delete Windows.old folder.
Delete the Windows.old folder from Windows 7
Here is how you can delete the Windows.old folder safely:
Step 1: Right-click on your system drive (Windows 7 drive) and select Properties.
Step 2: In the properties box, click Disk cleanup button to see the Disk cleanup dialog.
Step 3: If you can’t see Previous Windows Installations under Files to delete list, click Cleanup system files button to see Previous Windows Installations entry in the files to delete list.
Step 4: Check the box next to Previous Windows Installations and hit OK button to start deleting the Windows.old folder. Good luck!
Disk cleanup 666 says
Disk cleanup does not work if the ‘Windows.old’ folder is not in the C drive, this happened because I installed secondary HDD into my PC that has a Windows.old folder in it. Windows 7 should has the button of the ‘Disk cleanup’ on all the HDD after right mouse clicking at the HDD’s icon and accessing it’s Properties menu. So to fix this problem, I need to installed the HDD into another PC system that has Windows 10 installed, then I would use the Win10’s Disk cleanup feature to get rid of the ‘Windows.old’ folder.
Renaming any folder’s name to the ‘Windows.old’ folder can has it removed under Windows 10’s Disk cleanup feature.
Jennifer says
I have a windows.old folder. (I had to reinstall windows) I’ve gone through disk cleanup, and nothing happens. (I will get to the delete these things box, and I have made sure that the correct things are checked. However, after it starts, it closes and nothing happens. (No error message, no nothing. It just closes) What could be the reason for this?
admin says
Thanks for the answer. Will surely help other Windows 10 users.
Rob says
Had the same problem many others here were having, i.e. the .old files not appearing in the disk cleanup, and windows obstinately refusing to allow me to delete it no matter what. So I wondered if there was a more creative solution.
What I intended to do was partition a hard disk in two, have only the .old folder on that partition, and then format it. But my hard disk was too full to make this easy, so I wondered if windows would let me move the folders (I had two .old’s) rather than deleting them. When I tried to move them to a different hard disk, the process started, made a new “program files” folder on the 2nd hard disk (wtf?), then hit an error of some sort. I hit cancel twice, and was delighted to find that the .old folder had disappeared from the original hard disk! And the newly created program files folder deleted fine.
So, people who are struggling, just try moving the folder and see what happens. If that doesnt work, partition the HD in two, get the .old folder in a partition by itself, and then blitz it. Of course, this wont work if it is on your c: drive and windows wont let you move the folder at all.
If all the above fails, then what you “could” do is to download linux onto a usb stick, boot from usb into Linux, and then delete the folder(s) from there. Cos Linux dont give a damn about stupid windows permissions lol.
thonniad says
wao! it works, good job
agi says
THANKS MUCH
only read right,and your way help to delete it
poonam says
i cant see the “previous intallation or old.window” option but i have a folder named as old.window. so tell me how can i delete ..
Prasun Pal says
Thank you!
But how to pertition my drive?
TRAVIS says
HELP! “PREVIOUS WINDOWS INSTALLATIONS” DON’T APPEAR ON MY DISK CLEANUP,but a huge chunk of my hard drive is consumed. i just installed windows 7 over xp on a single partition on a old hard drive.
HP laptop guy says
author dude, nice work there. ive been viciously searching the web for the solution to some windows 7 issues with no luk.
But i found almost exactly wut i wanted in these site.congratz.keep up the gud work
samantha says
Thanks!! I wish I had known to delete it this way…I simply deleted it the old fashioned way…I hope I didn’t mess up anything :(
adam says
Thank you so much. I thought it was a silly ownership problem, despite me being the admin on my computer. I’ve been trying to do this for over an hour, and now its gone. thanks!