Yes I did it with Windows 7 and both the preview versions of Windows 8. If you installed the beta version of Windows 8 and upgraded to the latest build you could not upgrade to the later version. So when I upgraded to Build 8400 all my files (documents, photos, videos and music) were in windows.old. In order to restore those folders I drag and dropped the those folders into my latest installation of windows. If you are unsteady with drag and drop you can use copy and paste. The end result I had all my documents in my new installation. All I had to do was to reinstall the associated programs. That why I stated earlier, I am totally confused by the other post that the windows.old folder is useless. I suggest try it and see if it works, but I'm positively sure that it will.