Removing old Windows 7. Removing old Windows after installing a new one - step-by-step instructions. "Cleaning" in Windows directories

Co Windows time stores many backup copies in the system, temporary files, old drivers, which will gradually take up space on your hard drive. Of course, you can free up space on your hard drive, but what to do if old drivers for a device interfere with the installation of new versions? Particularly problematic wireless mice, keyboards and others USB devices, which sometimes do not want to work until we remove the old drivers and install new ones.

Drivers are small necessary applications to connect any device and make it work. Windows has a very large database of drivers for different types devices: printers, mice, sound cards, boards, etc. Some manufacturers release their own versions of the driver, which are necessary for operation and are not always in the database windows drivers can work with one or another device. To do this, we need to remove old unnecessary driver versions and install new ones from the manufacturer.

How to remove a previous driver version

Every time the driver is updated over and over again, the old backup copies of the drivers remain in the system, thereby clogging HDD and interferes with the installation of new driver versions. To remove previous versions of the driver, write in "Search" (near Start) Command line or CMD, right click on it and run from administrator name, then in the window that opens, enter the command cleanmgr.

Check the box next to the item Device driver packages and click OK. This will clean up all old driver packages.

How to remove old device drivers in Windows

Most often, relatives remain hidden installed drivers The above method will not remove them. Hidden drivers remain in the system and when a new device is detected, they automatically install their hidden, old drivers and therefore interfere with the installation of new ones.

• Press a combination of buttons Win+R and enter the following command devmgmt.msc to open Device Manager.

• In Device Manager, click View >

Note: If for some reason they are not displayed, then see below how to fix hidden display of devices.

We see poorly highlighted devices in the picture above; these are hidden drivers that sometimes interfere with us.

• To remove old hidden drivers, just right-click on it and Delete.
• If you have the option to check a box, check the box.

How to identify hidden device drivers in the device manager

Note: The command is related to displaying hidden drivers in Device Manager, older versions of Windows XP, 7.

• Run Command line as administrator and enter the command:

SET devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices = 1

You can go to Device Manager and try to show hidden ones.

In a situation where the computer starts to work slowly, the only correct solution among the recommendations for self-configuration computer you will find reinstallation operating system, but this is not always done correctly, so then there is a need to remove the old Windows after installing the new one. Usually the OS is installed on a clean partition, but if it so happens that you installed the new Windows operating 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 everything necessary files were 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.

Removal using Windows

Now you have already figured out the BIOS settings on your computer, your new system is running and you are ready to work. But to make it uncomplicated, Microsoft has already thought about how to remove old Windows after installing a new one in a convenient way for the user, so they added such an item to the standard software as “Disk Cleanup”. All work performed will be performed in the operating room. windows system 7. In other operating systems of the family windows order will be the same. Let's take a step-by-step look at how it works:

1. Click the Start button (bottom left corner of the screen).
2. Type "Cleaning" in the search bar.
3. At the top of the window, select “Disk Cleanup”.
4. The application selected in the previous step will open.

In the window that appears, select the drive where the operating system was previously installed and click OK. Next, the program will estimate how much disk space can be freed up and open the next window in which you need to check the box “ Previous installations windows" and click OK. The program will ask again if you want to delete the files. Agree, click “Delete files”, and in a few minutes the files from the previous windows installation will be deleted.

There is another way to open a program that will clean up the disk. Click “Start”, then “All Programs”. Then select “Standard”, then “Service”, and then “Disk Cleanup”.

Removing an old windows installation manually

If for some reason you want to delete the folder with the old version of Windows manually, you will have to tinker a little and make a number of settings.

First, you need to log in with an administrative account with full rights. Otherwise, you will not be able to delete the pack.

Now let's make the settings step by step:

1. Open My Computer.
2. Open the drive with the operating system installed (for example, local drive C).
3. Find the "windows.old" folder.
4. Right-click on the folder and open context menu and select the “Properties” line.
5. In the window that opens, select the “Security” tab.
6. Click the “Advanced” button - a window will open in front of you “ Extra options security for windows.old".
7. Go to the Owner tab and click the Edit button.
8. In the next window, select yours as the owner account, that is, the entry from which the deletion will be performed, and click “Apply”.
9. You will see a message stating that you have become the owner of the windows.old folder - click OK and close the properties window.
10. You can start deleting the folder with the old Windows operating system.

There are also two ways to delete a folder. The first is to right-click on the folder icon and select “Delete”. Agree that you want to delete the folder. Then empty the trash. The second is to select the folder by left-clicking the mouse, simultaneously pressing the Shift+Del keys on the keyboard, and agree to delete. The folder will be deleted bypassing the trash, that is, it will not need to be emptied.

After you have completed installing the new OS and deleting old files, we recommend reading the article about drivers for Windows 10, since not all of them are included in the installation package. If you haven't switched to new system, then you can find out how to download drivers for the “seven” here.

Cleaning the boot menu

After you have installed a new operating system on the same partition, you may have a problem in the form of a menu that prompts you to choose which OS to select when booting. This problem is quite easy to solve.

1. Click "Start";
2. In the search bar, type msconfig;
3. Select this program in the search results;
4. In the next window, go to the “Download” tab;
5. Select the old operating system;
6. Click the “Delete” button, after which the program will inform you about the need to reboot;
7. Restart your computer.

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.

There is nothing complicated about how to remove old Windows installations; the main thing is to decide on the method of execution. Now you can start setting up the 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.

Read also: - How to set up headphones on a windows 7 computer - How to set up local network between two computers - Settings windows networks 7 - How to set up a microphone on a windows 7 computer - How to distribute wifi from a windows 7 laptop - Setting up Skype on windows laptop 7

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bitu.ru

Removing old windows after installing a new one

After installation new windows files from the old version remain on the hard drive, which can take up several gigabytes of disk space. Moreover, in the boot menu previous Windows versions continue to “hang”, offering the user to boot from them. In addition, they clog the PC hard drive and slow down its operation. So, how to remove old Windows?

Via the disk cleanup menu

Put away old version windows can be done through the Disk Cleanup utility, which is available in all Microsoft operating systems, including Windows 10

Go to “Computer” and right-click on the icon of the section where the previous version was. Select “Properties”, then “Disk Cleanup”.

The system will begin scanning this partition for trash files; among them will be the item “Previous Windows installations»

Make sure it is ticked. Confirm deletion. Windows will ask you again if you want to continue the operation - click “OK”. After a few minutes, the utility will notify you that all trash files have been deleted.

The Disk Cleanup utility can be called in another way: left-click the “Start” manipulator and enter the word “Cleanup” in the search bar (works also for Windows 10/Windows 8.1). In the list that appears, select Disk Cleanup. Click the “Enter” button. The utility will prompt you to select the partition where the cleaning operation will be performed.

The previous version of Windows can be detected and removed using other cleaning programs. You can use, for example, CCleaner, latest version which was optimized for working with Windows 10. You can install other utilities – Glary Utilities, IOBit Advanced Care and so on. The main thing is that they support working with windows 10/8.1/7.

Removing the “windows.old” folder and adjusting the boot menu

It happens that neither a standard Windows cleaner nor a third-party one can find old files. This leads to the fact that the user has to look for the “windows.old” folder himself, delete it, and then, through the Windows boot configuration menu, disable the function of selecting a version that no longer exists. But for this you need to set the rights system administrator

How to do it? It’s very simple: press the Win+R key combination, enter secpol.msc and click “Enter”. In the left menu that appears, double-click on “ Local policies", then - "Security Settings". After this, now in the right window, look for the item “Accounts: State “Administrator”. Double-click on it and switch from “Disabled” to “Enabled” and save the changes.

After this, you need to reboot and launch the new (not old!) version of the operating system. After the main loading stage, Windows will prompt you to log in through two accounts, including the administrator account. We go through it. That's it, now you can play around with the system as a system administrator.

Now you need to use Explorer to go to the section where the “windows.old” folder is located and delete it. To do this, right-click on the icon of this folder and select “Properties”. Then you need to click on “Security” and then on “Advanced”. Among the proposed tabs, select “Owner”, click the “Change” button and select the account from which the deletion will be carried out. Save the changes with the “Apply” button and click “OK”.

A message will appear indicating that we have become the owner of this directory. Click "OK". You can now delete the “windows.old” folder (after moving it to the Trash) this catalog need to be removed from there too).

Now you need to go to the boot configuration menu. Press the Win+R key combination, enter msconfig and click “Enter”. Go to the “Download” tab and select previous versions windows. Click the “Delete” button

The computer will prompt you to restart. We agree and restart the system. That’s it, the question “how to remove old Windows” is resolved.

secretwindows.ru

How to delete the windows old folder (old windows) | Computer for dummies

Not formatted system disk Before reinstalling Windows, you will receive a burden in the form of files from the previous operating system (OS), stored in the windows.old directory and occupying tens of gigabytes. In addition, the system folders of the old profile and the no longer working option in the OS boot menu will remain. Getting rid of this garbage is necessary for normal computer operation. In this article we will explain step by step how to remove traces of old Windows.

Removing windows.old

This folder is located on the C drive and stores personal data of the old Windows user, for example, documents. You can open the directory, view the contents and copy the files you need. In the usual way windows.old cannot be erased. To do this you need to perform the following sequence of actions:

Removing old system folders

By opening the “Users” folder on drive C, you will see the system folders left over from the old Windows. They cannot be removed either from the explorer or special programs. To do this you will need to obtain owner rights:

Having received necessary rights owner of the folder, you can safely send it to the Trash.

Editing the download menu

From the Run command line

Using this method, you can remove unnecessary options from the bootloader menu forever.

From system settings

This option will allow you to hide unnecessary downloads when your computer starts.

1. Click Start + Pause.
2. Go to "Advanced Options".
3. In the Advanced menu, under Boot..., click Options.
4. Remove the check mark from the “Display OS list” item and click “OK”.

Features of Windows XP

The boot.ini file is responsible for the Windows version download manager. It is hidden in the root drive C and can be edited in a regular notepad. It is better not to do this: an error when editing will lead to system failure. A safer way is to use the settings described above (remove the OS boot list). You decide. We will only give advice on how to edit boot.ini:

1. Click “Start”, right-click on “My Computer”. From the menu, select Properties.
2. In the “Advanced” tab, click on “Options” in the “Download” subsection.
3. Select Edit to open boot.ini.
4. Do backup copy to roll back the system in case of boot failure. Open “File” - “Save As”, select the file name and path to save it. The name can be descriptive for ease of search, for example, “backup.boot.ini”.
5. In the source file, select the line with the old windows with the mouse and erase it. Click "File" - "Save".

After a reboot, the menu with the old OS option will not appear. Only the installed Windows will boot.

Deleting an old profile

Data from old profiles is stored on the hard drive and in registry branches. Correct removal will clear the system of all traces of the unnecessary profile.

How to delete a folder windows old(old windows)

dontfear.ru

How to remove windows old from windows 10

• 1 Getting rid of the old
• 2 If it doesn’t work right away

A nice addition to the new Windows 10 operating system is the fact that you can roll back to the previous axis. This saves all user files, settings and programs. Unfortunately, you have to pay a very high price for this in the form of deprivation of a certain part of the space hard drive. Yes, there is a certain folder windows.old that stores the old version. So the 10th generation can quite easily return to the user everything that he had before installation.

However, the old folder is huge in size, since a large amount of data is needed for a 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.

Getting rid of the old

The old folder on the computer is created if the user automatically switched from Windows 7 or 8 to the 10 series. It can also occur if you perform a clean installation without formatting the hard drive. 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 will no longer be able to painlessly return from Windows 10 to your old system.

So such a decision should be approached extremely carefully. So, if all doubts are swept aside, then:

• Press Win + R on the keyboard, which launches a special Run window.
• Enter the command in the window that appears: cleanmrg and click OK.

See also: After installing Windows 10, the video card does not work

• Thus, standard disk cleanup starts.

• In the window that appears, click on the Clean system files button.

• You need to look at the list of files that Windows 10 offers to permanently delete. Among them there will be a curious item called Previous Windows Installations. This is the old folder, which most brazenly eats up free space on your hard drive. Let's put a checkmark on it and send it into oblivion using the OK button.
• The last step is to wait for the space on the hard drive to be cleared.

In this simple way you can delete the folder called windows.old. But Windows 10 is an insidious 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.

If it didn't work out right away

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:

• Launch Task Scheduler, which can be opened via search.
• In the list of tasks that opens, you need to find SetupCleanupTask.
• Right-click on this task and select Run from the drop-down menu.

At the end of the process, the old folder should disappear forever.

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windowsprofi.ru

How to remove old/second windows

Alexander Shikhov, 12/12/2013 (updated 07/11/2017)

After installing a new operating system on top of or in parallel (in another partition) the previous one, the question arises of how to get rid of the remnants of the old version. Old windows, if it is installed on the same partition, it gets the name windows.old and does not interfere with the main system. If the old operating system is installed on another partition, then the folder name remains the same, but this also does not interfere with the new system. Everything seems to be fine, but there are two problems. Firstly, the old system takes up useful space and the volume can be more than impressive. Secondly, it is present in the boot menu, which we see when we turn on the computer. How to get rid of old Windows?

Why can't you just delete old files?

Old system files cannot be simply deleted. The user doesn't have access to the folder. current version windows. Usually this message appears.

Attention! Proceed with deleting old windows and Program Files directories only after you have transferred all their data to new windows!

If the new system is installed on the same partition as the old one

In this case, we just need to clean up old system files, including windows folder.old. To do this, we use the Disk Cleanup program, which is included with the operating system. Detailed instructions can be found on the Microsoft website.

By the way, in the same way you can delete unnecessary windows updates and a number of other service files.

If the new system is installed on a different partition

Removing old windows from the boot menu

To put things in order in the boot menu, open “Advanced system settings” (to do this, click Win-Pause and select the item of the same name).

Now uncheck the “Display list of systems...” checkbox. All: the old operating system will not appear in the boot menu when the computer starts.

For those who like to control all launch parameters, we offer a method with direct editing of this menu. Press Win+R and write msconfig in the window that appears.

We simply remove the old system from the list.

Removing old system files

Now let’s start deleting the windows directory of the old system. To do this, find it on the disk and open the folder properties.

Here we select “Security” and click on the “Advanced” button.

To become the owner of the folder, enter the username under which you work in the field indicated in the picture.

Don’t forget to check the “Replace owner of subcontainers and objects” and “Replace all records...” checkboxes, click OK.

You are now the owner of the folder and have the power to delete the directory. During deletion, a message like this may appear.

Check the “Run for everyone...” checkbox and click Continue.

Remember that after deleting old system files the way back will be closed. So don't rush into this. First, make sure that all the programs and data you need are transferred to the new system.

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At reinstalling Windows Without formatting the hard drive, a folder marked .old remains on it. It stores information about the previous installation of the operating system. As a rule, you should delete this folder if there is not enough free disk space. There are several methods:

1. Removal by formatting.
2. Manual removal.
3. Removal using Disk Cleanup.

On a note! When upgrading the system toWindows 10 folder is deleted automatically after ten days. When installingXP is produced completely hard formatting disk, so the old version is not saved.

The method is fail-safe and irreversible. During installation you should remove everything sections of hard disk and re-partition it. Please note that you should not select the option " Quick formatting", since it does not check bad sectors (bad sectors, bad sectors) hard drive. However, when full formatting Take care to save the information; it will not be possible to restore it after installation.

Manual removal

Step 1. Enter the directory of the disk with the installed system.

Step 2. Select the Windows.old folder and use the “Shift+Del” combination. When prompted, confirm the deletion.

On a note! Do not delete a folder to the trash via the context menu or by pressing the "Del." The hard drive will not be cleaned - the data in the recycle bin still takes up space.

Uninstall via command line

Actually this method is also a manual removal, however, uninstallation is carried out at a low level, which guarantees a better result due to the simultaneous scanning of hard drive sectors.

Step 1. To call command line In the Start menu, in the “Search programs and files” line, you need to enter cmd command, call the context menu and run the handler as administrator.

Step 2. To delete a directory, enter the command “rmdir /s c:\windows.old”.

On a note! Instead of a commandrmdir can be usedrd. Note the syntax - the command is case insensitive, i.e. "RMDIR" and "rmdir" are both equivalent and equally possible. At the same time, pay attention to the registration of the directory - if the folder intended for deletion is named “ ", and you indicate "windows.old", then nothing will be deleted.

Step 3. Confirm deleting the Windows.old folder by pressing the “n” key and “enter”.

On a note! Key "/s" allows you to delete a directory, including all subfolders and hidden files. If you add the key "/q", then confirmation of the request is not required, however, in order to avoid deleting the wrong folder, it is better to leave the request.

Removal via Disk Cleanup

Step 1. To call the utility, in the “Find programs and files” line, you need to enter the line “Disk Cleanup” and run the program as an administrator.

In the “Search programs and files” line, enter the line “Disk Cleanup” and run the program as administrator

Step 2.

Step 3.

Step 4. At the end of the analysis, a window will be displayed listing possible items for deleting partitions. Start the system file cleaning analysis process by clicking on the corresponding button.

Step 5. Select the device you want to wipe and click OK.

Select the device on which to perform cleaning and click “OK”

Step 6. Wait for the analysis process to complete. The assessment is made by sections of the hard drive.

Step 7 Select "Previous" Windows installations" and click "OK".

Step 8 Wait for the cleaning process to complete.

Video - How to remove old Windows after installing a new one

Conclusion

We have described four ways to remove the old system. All the above methods are standard for operating systems Windows family, and do not require installation of additional software. After cleaning your system, be sure to use the disk defragmentation procedure - this will allow you to use the remaining disk space as efficiently as possible. The evaluation of each method is given in the summary table.

It's no secret that sometimes people want to get rid of entries in their browser's “Browsing Log”. Maybe you're a curious teenager who doesn't want your parents to see what you're doing, or maybe you're a corporate spy who shamelessly leaks information to competitors, but the reasons don't matter. But how to do that. I also started looking for answers to this question. Having understood it well, I will teach you.

How to delete history from Mozilla Firefox

So, here are the necessary steps to get rid of browser history:

Advice! Think carefully before you click the “Delete Now” button. After this, the changes made will no longer be returned.

Note: You can delete your Firefox browsing history for today, yesterday, the past week, month, or year. This is very convenient, because you may want to keep some of yesterday’s data and delete some of today’s data.

How to delete data directly from the “Browsing History”

To do this you need:

Advice! In order not to engage in these unnecessary actions, you should just open the window Mozilla Firefox V " Private mode" In this case, nothing will be remembered, not even cookies will be created.

You can simply prevent Mozilla Firefox from remembering anything from the history.

To do this you need to do the following:

IN earlier versions mozillas, browsing history could only be deleted from the settings window. Everything is very simple. I will not describe how to do this, because I doubt that anyone else uses this inconvenient old thing. And if so, then experience will allow you to do it yourself.

Which can take up several gigabytes of disk space. Moreover, in the boot menu, previous versions of Windows continue to hang, prompting the user to boot from them. In addition, they clog the PC hard drive and slow down its operation. So, how to remove old Windows?

Via the disk cleanup menu

You can remove the old version of Windows using the Disk Cleanup utility, which is available in all Microsoft operating systems, including Windows 10

Go to “Computer” and right-click on the icon of the section where the previous version was. Select “Properties”, then “Disk Cleanup”.

The system will begin scanning this partition for trash files; Among them will be the item “Previous Windows installations”

Make sure it is ticked.
Confirm deletion. Windows will ask you again if you want to continue the operation - click OK. After a few minutes, the utility will notify you that all trash files have been deleted.

The Disk Cleanup utility can be called in another way: left-click the “Start” manipulator and enter the word “Cleanup” in the search bar (works also for Windows 10/Windows 8.1). In the list that appears, select Disk Cleanup. Click the “Enter” button. The utility will prompt you to select the partition where the cleaning operation will be performed.

The previous version of Windows can be detected and removed using other cleaning programs. You can use, for example, CCleaner, the latest version of which has been optimized for working with Windows 10. You can also install other utilities - Glary Utilities, IOBit Advanced Care, and so on. The main thing is that they support working with windows 10/8.1/7.

Removing the “windows.old” folder and adjusting the boot menu

It happens that neither a standard Windows cleaner nor a third-party one can find old files. This leads to the fact that the user has to look for the “windows.old” folder himself, delete it, and then, through the Windows boot configuration menu, disable the function of selecting a version that no longer exists. But for this you need to install system administrator rights

How to do it? It’s very simple: press the Win+R key combination, enter secpol.msc and click “Enter”. In the left menu that appears, double-click on “Local Policies”, then “Security Settings”. After this, now in the right window, look for the item “Accounts: State “Administrator”. Double-click on it and switch from “Disabled” to “Enabled” and save the changes.

After this, you need to reboot and launch the new (not old!) version of the operating system. After the main stage Windows boot will prompt you to log in through two accounts, including an administrator account. We go through it. That's it, now you can play around with the system as a system administrator.

Now you need to use Explorer to go to the section where the “windows.old” folder is located and delete it. To do this, right-click on the icon of this folder and select “Properties”. Then you need to click on “Security” and then on “Advanced”. Among the proposed tabs, select “Owner”, click the “Change” button and select the account from which the deletion will be carried out. Save the changes with the “Apply” button and click “OK”.

A message will appear indicating that we have become the owner of this directory. Click "OK". Now you can delete the “windows.old” folder (after moving it further to the “Trash”, this directory must be removed from there too).

Now you need to go to the boot configuration menu. Press the Win+R key combination, enter msconfig and click “Enter”. Go to the “Download” tab and select previous versions of Windows. Click the “Delete” button

The computer will prompt you to restart. We agree and restart the system. That’s it, the question “how to remove old Windows” is resolved.