Great work!
Delete Files In C:\Windows.old?
LGLDSR73-6492
1,090
Reputation points
I just did a Windows Update. Is it alright to delete the files in C:\Windows\Windows.Old? They take up several Gig in space.
What about the files in C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution? Can those be deleted?
Thank you,
LGLDSR73
C:\Windows.old\WINDOWS\SoftwareDistribution
Windows for home | Windows 11 | Windows update
Answer accepted by question author
-
Rodrigo Queiroz 77,500 Reputation points Independent Advisor2026-01-16T17:08:34.0533333+00:00
7 additional answers
Sort by: Most helpful
-
Rodrigo Queiroz 77,500 Reputation points Independent Advisor
2026-01-16T05:09:10.0266667+00:00 Great! Glad that you solved it, thanks for sharing your solution.
-
LGLDSR73-6492 1,090 Reputation points
2026-01-16T11:38:50.6933333+00:00 Me too! Thank you very much for your help! - LGLDSR73
Sign in to comment -
-
![](data:image/svg+xml, %3Csvg xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg' height='64' class='font-weight-bold' style='font: 600 30.11764705882353px "SegoeUI", Arial' width='64'%3E%3Ccircle fill='hsl(204.8, 96%, 29%)' cx='32' cy='32' r='32' /%3E%3Ctext x='50%25' y='55%25' dominant-baseline='middle' text-anchor='middle' fill='%23FFF' %3END%3C/text%3E%3C/svg%3E)
Neil D 32,835 Reputation points Volunteer Moderator2026-01-14T22:13:27.1+00:00 You may be better initially running Disk Cleanup. Type cleanup in Search and select the top result.
Run it twice the second time selecting Clean-up system files and look for an select windows update related entries.
-
LGLDSR73-6492 1,090 Reputation points
2026-01-14T23:32:15.75+00:00 Thank you, I did.
I am unable to delete Windows.old. It says it is deleting it, taking a significant amount of time. When all is said and done every folder is still there. Nothing is purged. Do you have ANY idea what is going on? I need to reclaim that 22.7GB of disk space.
I have deleted that folder before without issue, save for 'Permission of username\Administrator required" which I am an Admin. SysInternals Sdelete64 returns an error of 'Access Denied' and I've used that program since NT 4.0.
Need some help here.
Thank you!
-
Neil D 32,835 Reputation points Volunteer Moderator
2026-01-15T13:44:01.7866667+00:00 No sorry I don't. It can take a while carrying out the system file clean-up but that should clear the windows.old folder.
You can try doing it in Safe Mode and perhaps open the folder and see if you can manually delete any sub folders one at a time. Perhaps if that works then you can delete the windows.old folder once it is empty.
Sign in to comment -
-
Rodrigo Queiroz 77,500 Reputation points Independent Advisor
2026-01-14T20:51:34.5766667+00:00 Hi, I'm Rodrigo and I will help you.
WIndows.old holds files from old major Windows feature updates and/or versions (Windows 10 > Windows 11 for example). If you don't plan to roll back these updates, it is safe to delete.About the files in C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution\Download it is safe to delete them too, in the case you delete a needed update file, it will be downloaded again. You can still use the Disk Cleanup utility to clear Windows Update files.
-
Q&A Assist2026-01-14T20:15:49.02+00:00 AI generated content. This question contains an answer created with AI from Q&A Assist. Learn moreYes, it is generally safe to delete the files in
C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution\Downloadafter a Windows Update. These files are temporary files used during the update process, and once the update is completed successfully, they can be removed to free up disk space.As for the
Windows.oldfolder, it can also be deleted if you are sure you no longer need to revert to the previous version of Windows. However, ensure that you have backed up any important files before proceeding with the deletion.
References: