When you upgrade XP or Vista to Windows 7 with the Custom (Advanced) option, the installation program puts all of your data and settings into the C:\Windows.old folder. That folder therefore has some very important stuff in it.

But no programs expect to find their files in Windows.old, so it does no harm to move the folder and its many subfolders elsewhere.

But not immediately. The first thing you should do with Windows.old is move your data out of it and back into Users where it belongs. See the third page of How to Upgrade to Windows 7 for details. Once you've moved those files out, there's no harm in moving what's left in Windows.old to an external hard drive, or even burn it to DVDs.

Add your comments to this article below. If you have other tech questions, email them to me at answer@pcworld.com, or post them to a community of helpful folks on the PCW Answer Line forum.

Comment Recommend Digg Twitter ShareThis

Email Print Send Feedback Reprints

Originally published on www.pcworld.com. Click here to read the original story.

Jump to comments

Microsoft

Additional Resources

WHITE PAPER

EFD vs. HDD - What You Need to Know

Enterprise flash drives provide a new Tier 0 storage layer capable of delivering high I/O performance at a very low latency. Proper use of EFDs in an Oracle environment can deliver increased performance compared to fibre channel drives. Read the recommendations for identification of the best DB components for EFDs.

WHITE PAPER

Gartner Research Report: Magic Quadrant for Application Delivery Controllers, 2009

The market for products to improve the delivery of application software over networks remains dynamic and innovative. Vendors focused on solving enterprises' most-pressing application problems have become the top players.

WHITE PAPER

Eight Criteria for Server Load Balancing

Server load balancers are a simple yet highly effective means to scale an application environment while ensuring its availability. Today's solutions should also address application performance and security. Read about the top eight criteria you should consider when choosing a server load balancer and how Citrix NetScaler meets those requirements.

What People Are Saying

9 comments | Add new

See all comments (9) | Add new

White Papers & Webcasts

High Performance for Integrating Massive Data Volumes
Processing very large data sets provides unique constraints, especially when time windows available for this processing are shrinking. This Technical White Paper presents...

Gartner Podcast: Driving SharePoint Adoption in Lotus Notes Shops
Learn how can you drive mainstream user adoption of Microsoft SharePoint when your users are committed to using email.

Improve Operational Efficiencies
Download Now

IDC Webcast: Linux Adoption in a Global Recession
Access this webcast, compliments of Novell and HP, for a limited time only!

Whitepaper: Drive SharePoint Adoption in Lotus Notes Shops
Learn how you can drive your users to Microsoft SharePoint when they rely on IBM Lotus Notes.

Bringing Order and Security to your Mobile Workforce: Corporate Mobility Policy and Device Management
Download this webcast, free, compliments of Nokia.

7 Tricks and Tips for Windows 7 - Part 1
Download Now

Data in Action: Making the Planet Smarter
Register Now

7 Tricks and Tips for Windows 7 - Part 2
Download Now

Hosted Security Services: Why it make budget and security sense in today's economy
Watch Now

All White Papers | All Webcasts