Deleting Windows.old

WightWalker · 01 Jan 2015

I know that's it not important, or necessary, to remove (delete) the Windows.old folder after an update, but it's superfluous to requirement (unless reverting back at some stage).

As I have a standalone build 9879, I decided to remove Windows.old. Ownership & permissions had to be changed for all locations which was not that easily accomplished but managed after a while but what was a problem was deleting file names that exceeded that maximum length, presumably 260 characters.

It begs the question: how can the file name be created in the first instance by the very same operating system that prevents it's removal?

After trying numerous suggestions, I stumbled across Robocopy:
mkdir empty_dir
robocopy empty_dir the_dir_to_delete /s /mir
rmdir empty_dir
rmdir the_dir_to_delete

cyberrufus · 01 Jan 2015

If you ever have to do it again disk cleanup is the easiest way to go.

toppergraph · 01 Jan 2015

cyberrufus said:

If you ever have to do it again disk cleanup is the easiest way to go.

Dito.

WightWalker · 01 Jan 2015

toppergraph said:

cyberrufus said:

If you ever have to do it again disk cleanup is the easiest way to go.

Dito.

Still doesn't answer the question: how can the file name be created in the first instance by the very same operating system that prevents it's removal?

Brink · 01 Jan 2015

The Windows.old folder is a considered a system folder, and Windows will not let you manually delete it easily by default to protect it.

https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/2...dows-10-a.html

toppergraph · 01 Jan 2015

WightWalker said:

toppergraph said:

cyberrufus said:

If you ever have to do it again disk cleanup is the easiest way to go.

Dito.

Still doesn't answer the question: how can the file name be created in the first instance by the very same operating system that prevents it's removal?

I am not compleatly sure of what the problem is, if you have WIN 10 installed ONLY(I presume new install not upgrade on a stand alone pc) Why do you have windows.old anyway?. Do you mean after preview build installations(not normal updates)?.

BunnyJ · 01 Jan 2015

toppergraph said:

WightWalker said:

toppergraph said:

cyberrufus said:

If you ever have to do it again disk cleanup is the easiest way to go.

Dito.

Still doesn't answer the question: how can the file name be created in the first instance by the very same operating system that prevents it's removal?

I am not compleatly sure of what the problem is, if you have WIN 10 installed ONLY(I presume new install not upgrade on a stand alone pc) Why do you have windows.old anyway?. Do you mean after preview build installations(not normal updates)?.

Post #5 is the answer to the question.
It's a system folder and you need to use the disk cleanup to remove it from you system.

WightWalker · 01 Jan 2015

toppergraph said:

I am not completely sure of what the problem is, if you have WIN 10 installed ONLY(I presume new install not upgrade on a stand alone pc) Why do you have windows.old anyway?. Do you mean after preview build installations(not normal updates)?.

It was originally a clean build 9879 with subsequent routine updates; can only assume that one of these created the .old folder.

BunnyJ said:

It's a system folder and you need to use the disk cleanup to remove it from you system.

I didn't have a problem removing the bulk of Windows.old by taking ownership & managing the permissions accordingly; being a Windows 7 user, I hadn't realised the existence of Disk Cleanup.

I simply thought it curious that 4 files remained that had file names with a length greater than that supported by the OS which must have created the files in the first instance.

toppergraph · 01 Jan 2015

WightWalker said:

It was originally a clean build 9879 with subsequent routine updates; can only assume that one of these created the .old folder.

BunnyJ said:

It's a system folder and you need to use the disk cleanup to remove it from you system.

I didn't have a problem removing the bulk of Windows.old by taking ownership & managing the permissions accordingly; being a Windows 7 user, I hadn't realised the existence of Disk Cleanup.

I simply thought it curious that 4 files remained that had file names with a length greater than that supported by the OS which must have created the files in the first instance.

No body Knows All to the mystrey`s of any O/S unless you Wright your own. But disk cleanup has been with windows scince I can rember. Where your win.old came from ;I don`t Know. but your now sorted Thanks to #5 .

Mystere · 01 Jan 2015

WightWalker said:

It begs the question: how can the file name be created in the first instance by the very same operating system that prevents it's removal?

First, the obligatory Beg The Question // Get it right.

Now that I've annoyed everyone with my pedantics, the answer to the question you "raised" is that there is a difference between the allowed character length in the filesystem, versus the allowed length in the interface you use to access the file (ie command line or GUI). The Filesystem (obviously) allows longer characters, but the command line does not. That is because the command line must work with many kinds of filesystems, some of which do not allow such long names, and because the OS is based on (in effect) DOS from many years ago and there are still certain holdovers. In particular, many of the command line utilities have file length limitations that are far below what the filesystem can handle.