Can't remove Windows.old at all.

f14tomcat · 24 Oct 2018

I read somewhere that if the windows.old is not "seen" on C:, doing the following command will tickle it to appear.

dir C:\

PiKo · 24 Oct 2018

Some time ago I had a very persistent nested folder, I could not remove (I believe it was a Windows.old1 folder).
After burning a Linux Mint iso on DVD, and starting up with Mint, I could easily delete that folder.

jimbo45 · 24 Oct 2018

Hi there
any live Linux distro will delete the file - but if you are uncomfortable with Linux then KYHI's recovery disk, Macrium in command mode or any WINPE type of disk will do the trick too -- these other disks are all "Windows like" so windows users won't have to do anything different as even File explorer will work on a lot of them.

Cheers
jimbo

f14tomcat · 24 Oct 2018

Link to above mentioned Kyhi:

Windows 10 Recovery Tools - Bootable Rescue Disk - Windows 10 Forums

Bastet · 24 Oct 2018

jimbo45 said:

Hi there
any live Linux distro will delete the file - but if you are uncomfortable with Linux then KYHI's recovery disk, Macrium in command mode or any WINPE type of disk will do the trick too -- these other disks are all "Windows like" so windows users won't have to do anything different as even File explorer will work on a lot of them.

Cheers
jimbo

Thanks Jimbo, I’ll try the Macrium boot disc first then move on to Kyhi’s recovery disc.
Will do this tonight.

Best wishes,
Virginia.

Bree · 24 Oct 2018

Bastet said:

... I’ll try the Macrium boot disc first...

The Macrium boot disk does not include Explorer.exe, so you won't have File Explorer available. Macrium provide their own simple 'PE Explorer' that does the same job. That and the command prompt can both be launched from icons on their 'taskbar'.

Bastet · 24 Oct 2018

Update:
I tried the PE explorer within Macrium & I still received the error that Windows.old could not be found so I moved onto the cmd & that worked.
I’ll make a note of that cmd for future reference.

Thanks to all who replied, especially @Bree who provided the cmd.

Bree · 24 Oct 2018

Yes, the command line often works when all else fails.