windows.old????

[CarDesinr]

So I put windows 7 on an old Dell Latitude E4300 for my friend and it has a 160GB hard drive. It used to have Windows Vista on it. Being that the drive is so small and he needs all the space, I was wondering if vista was still on there. Looking around, I find windows.old which takes up 16.8GB in the directory and wanted to know if those were the remnants of vista. If they are, can I remove the folder with windows 7 left in tact?

[crunzaty]

Windows.old should just have the old operating system, it should be safe to just delete the files.

 

http://windows.microsoft.com/nb-no/windows7/how-do-i-remove-the-windows-old-folder (Does it change language?)

[iruixos]

Take any remaining files you want from the folder, then you can delete it with no ill effects to the necessary operations of your system.

[Giddyguy]

windows.old is perfectly fine to delete. I believe in Windows 7's own disk cleanup is suggests you to delete the windows.old files.

[glutesontheloose]

Windows.old contains the old Operating System in that drive. Its only useful for getting your old documents but other than that its best to just delete it when you know you don't need anything from it.

 

In some cases, windows.old won't completely be deleted and if that happens, just run Disk Cleaner on that Partition. Remember to choose the "Clean up System Files" after the first scan so the list will include old Windows files (a.k.a. Windows.old). Just check it and should delete it fully.

[LogicalDrm]

Having windows.old means that you haven't formatted drive during installation. You have most likely selected option to upgrade system.