Creating space on C Drive

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Creating space on C Drive

Alan Moffat 50

Having created space on my C drive to accommodate Windows 11, version 25H2 update, I now need to move back to my C drive a very large music folder but I need 36Gb of space and only have 30Gb left on my C drive which actually has a capacity of 225Gb. After lots of trying I just cannot find a way to create this extra space which would have to be changed everytime another MS update arrives. This music folder is for my iTunes which doesn't want to run from either of my external drives and only wants to run from the C drive. I have looked at the Widows.Old folder and if I move that I would have plenty of space for both my music files and future Windows updates what would happen if I copied this folder to one of my external drives and then deleted files/folders in the Windows.Old folder, firstly is this possible and secondly would it impact the operating of the system running on the new version? If you have any suggestions I would be pleased to read them.

Alan Moffat 50 Reputation points

2025-10-25T14:47:39.54+00:00

DaveM121

Your second response to my question has not yet shown up online but I managed to read enough from my email notification that I was able to follow and have now cleaned up my disk and now have 84Gb of free space. I think this gas been a very successful outcome and I thank you very much for your help.

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Alan Moffat 50 Reputation points

2025-10-25T14:47:39.54+00:00

DaveM121

Your second response to my question has not yet shown up online but I managed to read enough from my email notification that I was able to follow and have now cleaned up my disk and now have 84Gb of free space. I think this gas been a very successful outcome and I thank you very much for your help.

Answer 1

DaveM121 891.1K Independent Advisor

1

If you move the Windows.Old folder to another drive, then the option to restore to the previous versions of Windows after the update will no longer work correctly, it will be come unavailable.

If you have installed 25H2 and you are happy with the update and your system is stable, then the best option is to run Disk Cleanup to delete the Windows.Old folder from your C drive to free up the space on your C drive.

2

If you are continually short of space on your C drive:

Download he free TreeSize app from the Microsoft Store.

Very Important - to run TreeSize, you must right click its icon and choose Run as Administrator.

Please provide a screenshot of your C drive in that TreeSize utility, so I can see your hard drive and work out where that space is being used and if there is an underlying problem.

Please ensure the full TreeSize window is in the screenshot, there is information on the top and bottom bars I needs to see.

Alan Moffat 50 Reputation points

2025-10-25T13:56:19.6133333+00:00
I ran Disk Clean-up and of the 7 folders in Windows.old only 3 folders (Program File, Program Files (x86) and WINDOWS have any contents and they appear to be unchanged, it would also seem that those three folders are blocking removal and I am unable to remove them manually as the message I receive is that they can only be removed by the creator. Any suggestions?

I am not normally short of storage space this problem started when I started using a cloud space and auto updating of files which I have stopped and the cloud space takes storage from all the files I want to keep secure from my external drives and is no longer affecting the C Drive. What is taking up 54Gb on the C Drive is the Windows.old folder.
DaveM121 891.1K Reputation points Independent Advisor

2025-10-25T13:59:57.4166667+00:00

Please try running disk cleanup twice like this.

Open File Explorer

Click on your hard drive

Click the 3 dots on the top menu and select Cleanup

Let Disk Cleanup do its initial scan

Select Everything in the list and choose Delete

.

Start Disk Cleanup again

Let Disk Cleanup do its initial scan

Very Important - this time in the resulting dialog, click 'Cleanup System Files'

Let Disk Cleanup run another scan

Select Everything in the list and choose Delete

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Creating space on C Drive

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