Operating Windows systems Although they are incredibly popular, they still cannot boast of long-term stable operation. So, in some cases, the need to reinstall occurs several times a month - it all depends on the programs the user is working with.
In light of this, it is not surprising that many are interested in the question of how to remove old Windows. The fact is that installing a new system on top of an existing old one is highly not recommended, since this rarely eliminates software errors and failures; rather, it adds new ones. Starting from the operating room Vista systems, developers at Microsoft took into account the wishes of users and added it to the installer special opportunity, thanks to which it has become much easier to figure out how to remove old Windows.
Advanced installation mechanism
Before we tell you how to remove old Windows, let's analyze the behavior of the installer on Win XP systems (and more earlier versions), as well as Vista (and later).
When installing old systems on a hard disk partition where a copy of the system was already present, the installer prompted the user to make a choice - erase the existing Windows folder or start installation in a directory with a non-standard name. In both the first and second cases, all data from the “Documents” section, “Desktop” and other key folders were lost. I had to learn how to remove the old Windows while keeping necessary files. With the advent of Vista, the situation changed: the installer, having discovered a copy of the system, renamed it to Windows.Old and moved all related folders there. The meaning of this small innovation For end users It’s hard to overestimate - it’s revolutionary.
How to remove the old oneWindows 7
Depending on the system being installed, the preparation also changes. Let's consider a more complex option, when Win XP is installed on the hard drive. The easiest way to save any files from your previous system is to prepare media with bootable version LiveCD.
There are quite a lot of these solutions, so there shouldn’t be any problems with choosing. You should download a LiveCD from the Internet. According to the instructions provided with it, write it to a disk/flash drive. Then boot into this mini-system and copy the necessary data. The next step is to remove Windows folders,Program Files. If we're talking about about Win 7, you can also erase ProgramData, Users. All that remains is to reboot and start the installation. In case it is installed a new version system, then a LiveCD will not be needed: after installation is complete, there will be a Windows.Old directory on the disk, where all system data will be transferred. What you need from here must be copied, and what is unnecessary must be erased. Removing remnants of the previous system can be done through the "Disk Cleanup" function in the "Start" - "Accessories" - "System Tools" menu, indicating "Previous installations" in the list. Sometimes people who want to use the system for free are wondering how to remove the old Windows activator 7. To do this you need to restart this program and select the uninstall option. Another method that is no less effective is to install a new solution simply on top of the old one. All key links will be automatically overwritten.
In a situation where the computer starts to work slowly, the only correct solution among the recommendations for setting up the computer yourself, you will find reinstalling the operating system, but this is not always done correctly, so then there is a need to remove old windows after installing the new one. Usually the OS is installed on a clean partition, but if it so happens that you installed a new operating system Windows system in the same place (in the same logical drive) as the old one, it will automatically remove the files of the old operating system into a folder called “Windows.old”. After all the necessary files have been saved, the folder with the old OS can be deleted. Moreover, there is never too much space on your hard drive. There are two ways to do this.
After you have installed the new operating system in the same section, you may have a problem in the form of a menu that, when loading, asks you to choose which OS to choose. This problem is quite easy to solve.
After all the above steps, the operating system will boot into normal mode and the menu with the choice of operating system will no longer appear.
How to remove old ones Windows installations there is nothing complicated, the main thing is to decide on the method of execution. Now you can start setting up sound on your computer, setting up drivers, networking, and other things with peace of mind. Remember: in order to avoid the procedure of uninstalling previous versions of operating systems, it is recommended to install Windows on a pre-formatted partition. Thus, you will save your new operating system from garbage in the form of programs and files of the previous version of Windows.
A nice addition to the new Windows 10 operating system is the fact. This saves all user files, settings and programs. Unfortunately, you have to pay a lot for this high price in the form of deprivation of a certain part of the hard drive space. Yes, there is a certain Windows.old folder that stores old version. So the 10th generation can quite easily return to the user everything that he had before installation.
Nevertheless, old folder huge in size, as it is necessary a large number of data for correct rollback. Many users want to delete such a folder. Well, in fact, Windows 10 looks so great, and all the bugs will most likely be fixed in the near future. Thus, the question arises, how to delete this old folder, no longer needed by anyone, in order to allow the system to breathe freely and not store an impressive pile of old junk? There is a certain simple sequence of actions in this regard.
The old folder on the computer is created if the user automatically upgraded from Windows 7 or 8 to the 10 series. Also, it can occur if clean install without hard formatting disk. It often eats up several gigabytes, which are very valuable at the current prices of hard drives.
It should be remembered that if you wipe the old folder on your computer, you can painlessly return from Windows 10 to your old system it won't work anymore.
So such a decision should be approached extremely carefully. So, if all doubts are swept aside, then:
In this simple way you can delete the folder called Windows.old. But Windows 10 is a treacherous system, it is full of unpleasant surprises. Therefore, in some cases, you may simply not delete the old folder for reasons unknown to the user. In this case there are countermeasures.
We open the wonderful command line interface, which always helps out in difficult times. Naturally, this must be done under administrator rights. Next, enter the command: RD /S /Q C:\windows.old. Of course, this folder should be located on drive C. Press Enter and wait for the result.
There is another way to delete the old folder. To do this you should:
At the end of the process, the old folder should disappear forever.
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Often, in order to maintain the functionality of some software tools or computer games we leave the previous version of the operating system. Meanwhile, we are actively using new system, so to speak, we are settling it. The moment comes to give up outdated version, for several reasons…
Everything is much simpler than it might seem! First, we will need to boot into a more recent operating system, for me it is Windows 7, and we will remove the outdated WindowsXP. Already from the active system we will configure the computer boot and clean up unnecessary files!
The main part is completed, after the above steps, when you turn on the PC, the list of available operating systems will not be displayed. Now you can move the required files from one system to another - the active one.
To do this, use file manager(for example TotalCommander) or capabilities " Windows Explorer" You may have office documents, photographs or other personal data saved.
After the files have been copied to the active Windows directory, you should delete the associated directories of the previous version (be careful when cleaning system files)!
Actually, you can stop, since the operating system cannot physically be loaded, but there are saved records about loading in active system and it would be nice to get rid of them too:
There are two ways to get rid of Windows 10 after upgrading to it from a previous version of the operating system: rollback and complete removal systems. The first method involves returning to a previously installed OS, and the second, discussed below, will help erase all references to the system from hard drive without installing another version of Windows.
Removing a system from a hard drive can be done in three ways:
You can save documents and other items not stored on the main partition of your hard drive using any method. You just need to determine in advance which partition carries the operating system and which contains all the other files.
Because the drive names required to work with them on the command line may be different from what you see on home page conductor, you need to know the correct names in advance:
Create a bootable USB flash drive with Windows 10
Move the bootable flash drive to the first place (1st Boot Device)
Save the changes and exit the BIOS
Press the key combination Shift+F10 to go to the command line
Execute the command sel part 2
Execute the command del par overrideThis method is similar to the previous one, since the first three steps are repeated.
In the BIOS, move the installation flash drive to the first place in the list
Select the required language settings
Click the “Install” button
Skip the step of entering the key
Select any version of the operating system
We accept the license terms
Choosing manual installation
Click the “Disk Setup” button
Select the partition and click the “Format” buttonDone, the system is completely removed, and the partitions with backup copies, third-party files and other elements remained untouched. If you want to clean your hard drive completely, then format it right there. After finishing working with disks, you can close the program and start using the cleaned disk to your advantage.
To edit disk partitions, a third-party program, EaseUS, will be used, which you must download and install from the developer’s official website. There is no Russian language in it, but all actions will be described in detail below. Please note that after deleting the main partition using this program, the computer will enter reboot mode to make all changes, but will not be able to exit it because the system will deleted. Instead, it will display an appropriate error confirming that the disk is empty.
By default, when migrating from an old operating system to a new one, the Windows.old folder is created, which contains all the necessary files to restore the previous installed OS. It is needed so that, if desired, the user can easily return to the old version of the system using standard features Windows and without having to reinstall the system. The folder is automatically erased after 30 days from the date of switching to the new OS, but you can delete it earlier by following these steps:
Press the Win+R combination to open the Run window
Run the command cleanmgr
Click on the “Clean up system files” buttonRestore points are created by the system in automatic mode and manually. They are needed so that it is always possible to roll back the computer to a certain state when all functions and processes worked fully. Over time, there may be too many points, and they take up some of the disk memory, so they should be deleted:
If, when you try to delete a system or a folder located on it, an error with code 0x80004005 appears, then the reasons for this may be the following:
By default, the system stores files of the initial version of the registry, intended specifically for recovery in case of malfunctions. They are located along the path Primary_disk:\Windows\System32\config\RegBack.
If none of the above methods help, roll back the system through restore points or return to initial settings. Please note that some personal data will be lost, so please back it up in advance.
There are several ways to remove a system from a disk, using bootable media or a third-party program. Getting rid of Windows will lead to the fact that you will get a hard drive that is clean of systems, but with the presence of user files on it, unless you erased them separately. And you can also delete restore points and the folder from previous version Windows. Uninstallation problems can be resolved by checking for viruses and restoring system files and the registry.
