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So, basically I clean installed windows 10, the third time in a week. Then appeared the windows.old folder in the C:. I tried deleting the folder from settings, disk cleanup etc. But it just wouldn't get deleted. So, I tried changing the ownership through cmd and tried deleting it & 'voila' it worked. But, the very moment I restarted my PC, it reappeared not only in my C: but in my other two hard disk partitions ( D: and E:) as well. I followed the same old step for the C: and quick-formatted the other two drives (as they were almost empty). Well, it was fine, but at the next reboot, they appeared again, the folder size increased from mere 3-4 GB to about 30GB in each folder, consuming about 100 GB total. I am utterly devastated and the folder size is just increasing.

Programs I used are piriform defraggler, ccleaner, and avast. I haven't downloaded any software from any suspicious websites or so.

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deechitpoudel
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  • Have you tried all this?: https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/2066-delete-windows-old-folder-windows-10-a.html – fernando.reyes Jun 30 '17 at 18:09
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    What build are you running. This appears to be an attempt by Windows to upgrade you to the current feature update, which would create a Windows.old, but it seems the update is being rolled back. Update your question with this information. I need the feature update and the exact build your running. – Ramhound Jun 30 '17 at 18:47
  • I am marking this as not duplicate only because in the few dozen times I've observed this behavior is has ALWAYS been due to a device driver, and the marked answer at the linked question is way overkill for dealing with a driver file lock. – music2myear Jul 12 '17 at 17:56

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Well, everything seems all right now. I clean installed the OS once again. It has been a day or two the folder hasn't appeared. Hopefully, it stays the same way.

deechitpoudel
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The reason there is a Windows.old folder is that you did not actually perform a Clean Installation.

By definition, a Clean Install involves formatting the drive or partition Windows will be installed on. This removes any previous Windows installations.

The default behavior for a basic Windows install where you do NOT begin for formatting the drive or partition is to backup the important portions of the previous Windows installations into a Windows.old folder.

This folder allows Windows to allow you to "Go Back" to a previous version of Windows. You'll observe this behavior when you upgrade from Windows 7 or 8 to Windows 10, and each time you install a new version of Windows 10.

This folder is kept about 30 days, during which you will find an entry in the Restore section of the Settings dialog to return to the previous version of Windows. After that, automated cleanup processes may clean the folder up.

You can also use the Disk Cleanup utility built into Windows to remove this, though it will warn you that you will no longer be able to recover to a previous Windows version once you've removed this folder.

I have personally noted issues with specific Drivers preventing deletion of this folder, but this have never been an issue when I used Disk Cleanup.

Typically, it will tell you what file is unable to be deleted, or which file you cannot take ownership of, and this will be associated with a specific device.

In your Device Manager you can disable the device, then take ownership of the folder and delete the files, and then re-enable the device and it should work just fine.

music2myear
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