Windows 10: W10 Anniversary Update - delete windows.old directory?

One me time! After installing the Anniversary Update I cannot delete the "windows.old" folder. I have gone through the routine of System Settings>Storage>This PC>Temporary Files and checked the Previous Version of Windows. That did the job and cleared out everything except a couple of folders in the windows.old folder. I have tried all the usual stuff like Properties>Disk Clean Up>Clean up System Files and checked "Previous Windows Installation(s). Yet the windows.old folder remains! I also tried the elevated Command Prompt method suggested for Windows 8. That did not work either. What the heck am I missing for the W10 Anniversary exercise?

I had a stubborn windows.old folder on a tablet. I booted from Kyhi's recovery drive and deleted it with file explorer:
Windows 10 Recovery Tools - Bootable Rescue Disk - Windows 10 Forums

My fool proof solution to files that cannot be deleted: Use a Linux live CD to boot and delete from there. This way you can show all permission issues the middle finger It's even simpler if you have got a dual boot setup. This way you only need to boot Linux to delete those stubborn files.

Ken429 said:

One me time! After installing the Anniversary Update I cannot delete the "windows.old" folder. I have gone through the routine of System Settings>Storage>This PC>Temporary Files and checked the Previous Version of Windows. That did the job and cleared out everything except a couple of folders in the windows.old folder. I have tried all the usual stuff like Properties>Disk Clean Up>Clean up System Files and checked "Previous Windows Installation(s). Yet the windows.old folder remains! I also tried the elevated Command Prompt method suggested for Windows 8. That did not work either. What the heck am I missing for the W10 Anniversary exercise?

On my laptop i was able to delete Windows.old folder by System Settings>Storage>This PC>Temporary Files and checked the Previous Version of Windows.
I did the same on a friend of mine laptop, and didn't worked. The only way that did the trick was downloading this:

Download Unlocker 1.9.2 - FileHippo.com

Install it, then with the right mouse button, under the windows.old folder, look for unlocker, and delete the folder.

Just curious; did you try to take ownership of that folder?

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

No, I did not try taking ownership. I looked at the how to and decided to try Unlocker first! I used Unlocker on two systems and got different results. The first system I was instructed to do a reboot before "windows.old" would go away on the second system Unlocker just deleted the folder. I attached a snap shot of what Unlocker was showing me - the same on both machines.

And the saga goes on... I have seven machines running W10 with the Anniversary Update applied. Unlocker worked in one fashion or another on five of the machines (meaning I had to reboot 2 of the 5 before Unlocker would make the windows.old folder go away). All five of the systems that I was able to use Unlocker had an Nvidia video card. The last two machines do not have a video card (using the onboard video from Intel) and Unlocker did not delete the windows.old folder, even though it had me reboot. So... I need a little more help to make this adventure complete! Is there a simple instruction on taking ownership of a folder and/or does TweakUI work on W10?