Windows.old

I am having quite a spot of difficulties in removing the Windows.old folder. This folder was created upon installation of Windows 8 which was an upgrade from Windows 7. I read many wiki's and searched around on the internet quite a bit and have tried many different methods of removal since the folder contains about 40GB worth of data I felt the need to remove it. An elevated command prompt in conjunction with the "RD" or "RMDIR" command has very poor results for me even though I have turned off the UAC and as well renamed the folder it seems to be very stuck in the system. That particular method leaves quite a lot of data still in the folder. I need a method of file removal that works. Back in my DOS days I used to use a command DELTREE that would do this properly and even a little bit too well I might add but I was happier with that tool which seems to have been removed from the system. Any suggestions on this? I am noticing that also there is now some freezing of the file explorer happening when I try to open a context menu (right clicking) in many folders throughout the main disk C that has started to occur after my attempts at removal of the directory Windows.old.

Thanks in advance for any help in either of these matters...

Hello Sepoto, and welcome to Eight Forums.

Usually the methods in the tutorial below works to delete the Windows.old folder.
If that doesn't help, then you might see if using the free program Unlocker may be able to delete it.

Hope this helps,
Shawn

Brink said:

Hello Sepoto, and welcome to Eight Forums.

Usually the methods in the tutorial below works to delete the Windows.old folder.

http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/2527-windows-old-folder-delete-windows-8-a.html​

If that doesn't help, then you might see if using the free program Unlocker may be able to delete it.

Hope this helps,
Shawn

Click to expand...

Whatever the variation is for the command line RD seems to have worked for me. I think perhaps the use of %SystemDrive% could have been the syntax. I was using RD in conjunction with "C:\". I still though am left with the problem of opening a context menu causing the Windows File Explorer to become frozen. Thanks for the link it really helped out in terms of removing the Windows.old folder.

You're welcome.

You might see if running a sfc /scannow command may be able to help with the File Explorer issue.

If not, then you may need to refresh Windows 8.