Windows 10 Windows.old folder, weird?

[SAMMY0123876]

Apparently, a windows.old folder was created last night at around 11pm (I had no idea).

I noticed I have increased HDD activity, and I was wondering why's that. Then windows said my boot disk space is running low, so I went to 'My Computer' and noticed a large chunk of my second HDD space is gone. and my main boot disk only has 6gb+ free right now. Before it had 15+gb free.

It has these files inside

What are these? What is Windows doing?

My boot drive is only 60gb but yet this .old folder is over 170gb.

It's still doing whatever it's doing from last night.

Windows update doesn't indicate anything.

Please help.

 

[Neemobeer]

The Windows.old directory is created during a build update. Most likely you got the creators update (build 1703) It's there to allow a rollback if needed. To remove it, run the disk cleanup utility and check the box for 'System Files'

 

[SAMMY0123876]

The Windows.old directory is created during a build update. Most likely you got the creators update (build 1703) It's there to allow a rollback if needed. To remove it, run the disk cleanup utility and check the box for 'System Files'

How will I know when it's done? Should I remove it now? Or wait til' its done?

 

[Neemobeer]

You can press windows key + r and type winver if it says build 1703 you can remove it.

 

[SAMMY0123876]

You can press windows key + r and type winver if it says build 1703 you can remove it.

No, it says:

Version 1511 (OS Build 10586.962)

And my 2nd HDD space still getting smaller. Now 92GB free.

 

[SAMMY0123876]

Update: No HDD activity on both drives now. Sitting idle for the past half hour.

Windows says nothing. Version is the same as above, still.

2nd HDD free space is now 73GB+. Ceased going down in space.

 

[Neemobeer]

A reboot has to occur to finish the upgrade.

 

[SAMMY0123876]

A reboot has to occur to finish the upgrade.

Restarted.

It didn't do anything. No updates (as far as I can see) was done.

Still the same version numbers as above.

 

[davehc]

If you are satisfied that you have all you software intact, and need nothing from the previous installation (Windows.old), then it is safe to delete it. As you can see, it is using a huge amount of space.
You Windows version is quite a bit out of date. Currently, you should be seeing this:

You may need to be patient, but pay close attention to the updates.

 

[SAMMY0123876]

If you are satisfied that you have all you software intact, and need nothing from the previous installation (Windows.old), then it is safe to delete it. As you can see, it is using a huge amount of space.
You Windows version is quite a bit out of date. Currently, you should be seeing this:

View attachment 34991

You may need to be patient, but pay close attention to the updates.

I have been using my current windows installation for a couple months now and because I installed it directly (didn't upgrade from a previous windows), I never had a windows.old folder til' now.

It finished doing whatever it was doing earlier and like @Neemobeer suggested, I restarted. But my version numbers remained the same, windows update wasn't showing me anything and there was no indication during the shutdown/restart process to indicate an update was being done.

I just manually checked for an update in WindowsUpdate and the only update was available is for Windows Defender.

I deleted the windows.old folder and it was gone without a hitch. Used disk cleanup to check system files and the biggest size was 4.09GB which said "Previous Windows Installations" or something like that, which is funny because the real size was about 46x the size. Maybe it meant it only stored that amount of the windows.old info onto the boot disk and the rest on the 2nd HDD.

 

[BIGBEARJEDI]

Glad you got it resolved, Sammy. But, it's unlikely Windows Update (WU) would throw the windows.old or multiple copies of windows.old (there are actually 3 folders totaling about 30GB on some PCs with W10) that can exist onto a secondary HDD, unless you told it to do so somewhere in your W10 settings, such as redirecting your Pagefile to a secondary HDD, which many people do to speed up their systems for online gameplay or CAD or similar applications. Of course, a simple way to test that, would be to physically remove your 2nd HDD from your PC for about 3-4 months as that's when the next major Windows Update is coming out (Sept. 2017 timeframe) and see if any of the weekly updates (every Tuesday) or the September update will work without the 2nd HDD installed. If you install the 2nd HDD and the windows.old directories reappear it could be due to one of your W10 settings as I mentioned. It also could mean that your primary HDD is failing, and Windows was forced to write those backup folders to the 2nd HDD. So, it might be worth testing your primary hard drive as shown here:
HARD DRIVE DIAGNOSTICS:
Hard Drive Diagnostic Procedure

Best of luck to you,
<<BIGBEARJEDI>>

 

[SAMMY0123876]

Glad you got it resolved, Sammy. But, it's unlikely Windows Update (WU) would throw the windows.old or multiple copies of windows.old (there are actually 3 folders totaling about 30GB on some PCs with W10) that can exist onto a secondary HDD, unless you told it to do so somewhere in your W10 settings, such as redirecting your Pagefile to a secondary HDD, which many people do to speed up their systems for online gameplay or CAD or similar applications. Of course, a simple way to test that, would be to physically remove your 2nd HDD from your PC for about 3-4 months as that's when the next major Windows Update is coming out (Sept. 2017 timeframe) and see if any of the weekly updates (every Tuesday) or the September update will work without the 2nd HDD installed. If you install the 2nd HDD and the windows.old directories reappear it could be due to one of your W10 settings as I mentioned. It also could mean that your primary HDD is failing, and Windows was forced to write those backup folders to the 2nd HDD. So, it might be worth testing your primary hard drive as shown here:
HARD DRIVE DIAGNOSTICS:
Hard Drive Diagnostic Procedure

Best of luck to you,
<<BIGBEARJEDI>>

I actually just found out what caused the windows.old folder to be appearing out of nowhere and no update was actually being done.

I had virus. It was pretty bad because I couldn't even install AVG or Kaspersky (something about admin blocked it for my protection), even though I AM the admin.

I did the command prompt thing to enable the 'Administrator' account.

Logged out of my main account and logged into the Admin account and went to 'Network & Sharing Center', then 'Internet Options', then 'Content', then 'Publishers', then 'Untrusted Publishers', and there I saw a list of Antivirus programs listed. So I removed them all from the list.

Logged out of admins and back into my normal account and, boom. Can install antivirus now. After installing it, did a complete system scan and found multiple files that looked funny and I even googled some of the names and google found nothing. So I deleted them. Ones that couldn't be deleted because they were being used my another process, I used 'Unlocker' and delete them.

No more windows.old folder coming up again on both drives. And I managed to clear 8gb of space, so now I have 20gb free instead of 15gb (before this whole fiasco started) . Though I'm not gonna use it, but, still. Lol.