If you just installed the May 2019 Update of Windows 10, you should know that there’s 10GB of data wasting space on your hard disk, one system even had up to 24.6 GB.
If your system has a large amount of storage space, you may not know that there’s data of no use taking up space on your system. It will stay for 10 days before Windows will clean it, however if you need to free up some space for important data, you should clean it yourself.
These Files Let You Downgrade for 10 Days
Upgrading from Windows 10 builds say from Windows 10 October 2018 Update to the May 2019 Update is handled in the same manner as when you’re upgrading to a completely new Windows operating system.
When you upgrade to a new build, Windows will create a Windows.old folder which contains the system files that your former build had. This is so that you can return to using the older build suppose you encounter an issue with the current build you’re using.
The problem is however, that this folder can take up more than 10GB of space on your hard disk. Windows will remove it after 10 days, but you can take it out to free some space earlier if you need it.
You must be careful however to make sure that the build you recently installed has no performance issues before taking this step because if you remove the previous version, you will not be able to return to it and you’ll have to reinstall it.
If you want to return to the last build of Windows 10 you installed, head to Settings, then Update & Security, then Recovery and click the “Get Started” button beneath “Go back to the previous version of Windows 10”. You will only see this button if the files are still on your system.
How to Delete the Windows.old Folder Using
If, however after your installation all seems well, you can then remove these files. You won’t need to manually delete the Windows.old folder by hand, don’t use that method because some files that you need to remove are not even inside the folder.
The files can be removed when you use the “Free Up Space” tool in Settings which was introduced in the Windows 10 April 2018 Update. To do this, go to Settings, then select System, and then Storage. Then click on Configure Storage Sense or Run It Now.
Check the other settings while there. By default, Storage Sense will also have files that are more than 30 days old in your Recycle Bin deleted once it is run.
Scroll down and look for the “Delete previous versions of Windows” option. If you don’t find it on the list, you may have already deleted the files or Windows 10 has already deleted them for you.
Select “Clean Now” to have the previous versions of Windows as well as other files you want to remove with Storage Sense deleted.
Keep in mind that the option, “Delete files in my Downloads folder if they have been there for over” will remove files in the Downloads folder which you may not want happening. If that’s not the case, you can delete all the data as long as your PC is functioning properly. Note also that “Delete files in my recycle bin if they have been there for over” will remove files in your Recycle Bin.
How to Delete the Windows.old Folder Using Disk Cleanup
You could also make us of the Disk Cleanup tool. Disk Cleanup may be vilipended but it is still existing in Windows 10.
To launch it, search for “Disk Cleanup” in the Start menu, then press Enter.
Once the Disk Cleanup window opens, click the “Clean Up System Files” button.
Check the “Previous Windows installation(s)” option. You could also search for other forms of files that you want removed from your hard disk to free up space.
After selecting want you want removed, click “OK”. Disk Cleanup will remove the previous Windows installation files and free up space on your hard disk.
If you want to return to using an older build after you have deleted it, you will have to reinstall it from an installation media that has the older build you want installed.
