Although it occupies significant storage space on the operating system partition, before you see how to delete the Windows.old folder on Windows 11, it's good to understand the importance of this folder.
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What is Windows.old and why it's important
The Windows.old folder appears after upgrading from a previous version of Windows to Windows 11. For example, if you already have Windows 11 version 22H2 installed and upgrade to version 23H2, after completing the installation of the new version, the Windows.old folder will appear on the system partition.
The Windows.old folder contains all the files from the previous operating system, including user settings and previously installed programs. The data in this folder is used to revert to the previous version of Windows 11 if something doesn't work well in the new version.
How to delete the Windows.old folder on Windows 11
If you consider that the Windows.old folder is not useful for reverting to the previous version of Windows 11, you can manually delete it by following the steps in the tutorial below:
1. Open Windows 11 settings and go to: System > Storage.
2. In the storage management options, go to "Cleanup recommendations" and check to delete previous Windows installations (Previous Windows installation(s)).
3. Click the "Clean up" button to delete Windows.old on Windows 11.
4. Wait until the task of deleting previous versions of Windows present on the system partition is completed.
This tutorial is for Windows 11. If you want to delete the Windows.old folder on Windows 10 or older versions, follow this link: How can you delete the folder Windows.old on Windows 10 and older versions of Windows.