Deleting Window.old folder

Windows 10 is an operating system which is receiving a good slew of bug fixes and feature enhancements free of charge, on a potentially free OS upgrade

After the update one might notice some icons and shortcuts that had probably been deleted, like the Windows Store or the Edge browser icon on the taskbar, have been added back. That's just old Microsoft keeping to old ways, but that's easily fixed.

Something that may not be as obvious is that the big update is treated almost like a Windows upgrade

To be on the safe side, Microsoft's install setup saves a full copy of current Windows installation (that's the Windows.old directory right there), and while this will come handy in case something goes wrong or need to revert back, it will also occupy several gigabytes of precious storage

                                                                                                                 

If one thinks that he might want to revert back changes, deleting this folder will take away that option.

But if you are strapped for storage space, you can use Windows' own tools to remove it.

If you try to delete the Windows.old directory using File Explorer, the OS will prevent you from doing so as they are considered system files. You could bypass these after meddling with permissions settings, but there's no need to do that. Here's how you do it:

Removal in 5 steps

Step 1. Go to Start and type, 'Disk Cleanup'

Step 2. Open Disk Cleanup and select your main system drive.
The tool will scan your drive for unnecessary files and old cached data. However the Windows.old version wont be accepted for

Step 3. Select the option "Clean up system files" near the bottom of the window. Select your main drive again and the scan process will be repeated

Step 4. The result of the scan will display different types of data, from Recycle Bin files to temporary internet cache. This time around, "Temporary Windows installation files" will be there accounting from as little as 9 GB to as much as 25GB or more

Step 5. Select all the files you want to remove, including the Windows installation files. Click OK. The confirm the subsequent prompts