Question about deleting old Windows Versions

dalchina said:

Windows.old will be deleted automatically by default 10 days after you upgrade.

Otherwise- it seems no-one has pointed you to the extensive professional quality tutorial section:

Type
Windows.old
in the search box here:

https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/
(Tutorial option - at top of this page)

and you will see

How to Delete Windows.old and $Windows.~BT folders in Windows 10

As said above- your real priority is to establish a regular and periodic disk imaging routine.
Aomei Backupper should be fine.

But you need large enough external storage on which to save the image files- so consider how big your disks are, then allow for multiple compressed images (the first is larger, subsequent differential (differences) or incremental images smaller.

Suggest you go straight for a 2Tb external drive- gives some future-proofing.

Thanks. My Seagate has 1.49 TB free currently., Will that be enough? I'm still cleaning house on it after moving back from Linux Mint. Sheesh. I just get a little twitchy, because the last time I tried to save my files, I got nothing but a big mess that took me ages to find the folders. I wanted the folders with the files in them, but got nothing but files. It was Windows Vista. So, a little scared, but I've never done an image before, so no idea what I'm supposed to do here.

Maghdalena

- - - Updated - - -

steve108 said:

If you use WizTree and it was still there, hidden or not, it will jump and bite you like a snake

LoL. No snakes here. It was deleted like mentioned, by default.
Maghdalena

- - - Updated - - -

steve108 said:

Hello Maghdalena,
Do you make regular backups Backup and Restore with Macrium Reflect -?

They can be a real life saver. After I make a full monthly backup, I will delete old or all restore points if my PC is running properly.

I also like using WizTree app to hunt down disk hogs that may have escaped Disk Cleanup, etc, or old files I've forgotten about and no longer need. Don't delete anything you're unsure about

Oh, Wiztree is an app. I thought you meant File Explorer. Is that in the Microsoft store/

dalchina said:

Disk imaging simply means you have compressed copies of the used parts of the partitions you've selected to be imaged, saved somewhere- preferably securely and separately from your PC so they can't be affected by power surges, theft, ransomware etc.

Macrium Reflect (free) is reckoned the most robust and used by many here.

As well as a huge help file, there are videos on Youtube - even a couple of tenforums tutorials (a bit older now I suspect).

MR is regularly updated. The free version offers differential imaging; the paid gives access to its forum and more advanced features.

Aomei Backupper (free/paid) has a simpler GUI and includes incremental imaging too in the free version.

You can create an imaging job such that after you create the first image, you can subsequently create smaller/faster differential (difference) images - between the first image and 'now' - whilst incremental images are smaller again and the difference from the preceding image.

Thus you have, after 3 successive images (base, diff1, diff2 say) 3 different dates to which to restore.

You can also mount images and extract files from them - a complete backup.

You can also clone disks, and transfer programs from 1 PC to another using an image as source (3rd party program required).

A bootable disk should be created: if your system disk fails you can boot your PC from that and restore your imaged partitions to a new disk, e.g.

Thanks. I'll check those out! Appreciate it.