Need help moving a legacy windows folder off my C drive


  1. Riotubes
    Posts : 9
    Windows 10
       New #1

    Need help moving a legacy windows folder off my C drive


    Hello,
    I'm running out of disk space on my C drive where Win10 Pro version 1511 is stored.
    I've attached a screenshot showing the C Drive (only 18GB free of 237GB).
    There is a folder called Windows.Old the purpose of which I can't recall. It's size is 16GB. One of the screenshots shows the contents of this drive. On that screenshot, of the folders listed, "Windows" contains 15.5GB, nearly all of the storage for this subfolder called Windows.Old. Note that I also have a "Windows" subfolder on the C drive that is 23.6GB in size and last dated 10/22/20 so I know this is the windows that is running the PC.
    As far as Windows.Old, I think it might have been my C drive on an older PC that I decided to move to this C drive.
    In any event, I don't think I need it (all subfolders are dated year 2015).
    I had planned to move this folder to Drive F which has over 3TB of capacity, but it won't copy over using a tool like Syncback (at least many of the files). I tried logging in as Admin and that didn't help.

    Please help me, step-by-step, to transfer this Windows.old folder over to Drive F so I can free up C drive. Thank you!
    Attached Thumbnails Attached Thumbnails Need help moving a legacy windows folder off my C drive-windows10.png  
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  3. W10 Tweaker
    Posts : 1,807
    Windows 10 Pro 21H1 19043.1348
       New #2

    Riotubes said:
    Hello,
    I'm running out of disk space on my C drive where Win10 Pro version 1511 is stored.
    I've attached a screenshot showing the C Drive (only 18GB free of 237GB).
    There is a folder called Windows.Old the purpose of which I can't recall. It's size is 16GB. One of the screenshots shows the contents of this drive. On that screenshot, of the folders listed, "Windows" contains 15.5GB, nearly all of the storage for this subfolder called Windows.Old. Note that I also have a "Windows" subfolder on the C drive that is 23.6GB in size and last dated 10/22/20 so I know this is the windows that is running the PC.
    As far as Windows.Old, I think it might have been my C drive on an older PC that I decided to move to this C drive.
    In any event, I don't think I need it (all subfolders are dated year 2015).
    I had planned to move this folder to Drive F which has over 3TB of capacity, but it won't copy over using a tool like Syncback (at least many of the files). I tried logging in as Admin and that didn't help.

    Please help me, step-by-step, to transfer this Windows.old folder over to Drive F so I can free up C drive. Thank you!

    Goof morning Riotubes,

    Check this tutorial for directions to delete or move Windows.old . Depending on how long ago your OS was upgraded, it may have no value and deleting would be OK. Review the tutorial carefully and you will find the directions to take ownership of the folder first, as this is likely required. Be sure to also click the checkbox to include ownership for all sub-folders.

    Whenever I decide to move any folder of importance, I choose to copy it to another destination and then delete the original when complete. This provides a safety net to preserve the files in the case of a mishap.

    As always, please create a system restore point and system images using Macrium Reflect (or similar) before starting.
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  4. zbook
    Posts : 41,584
    windows 10 professional version 1607 build 14393.969 64 bit
       New #3

    After deleting or moving windows.old see this tutorial to free up additional drive space:
    https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/...up-drive-space
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  6. Bastet
    Posts : 2,558
    Windows 10 Pro 64bit
       New #4

    You can run disc cleanup>Clean system files to remove the windows.old folder.
    If this doesn’t work then you can remove it via Windows (or Macrium) boot USB/DVD by booting to cmd prompt & entering:
    rmdir /s c:\windows.old
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