Removing Old Archive Win Folders In Win7

Win10 upgrade never really got along with my Dell Latitude E6400 laptop. Shutdowns went badly, the back lit keyboard stopped working for awhile, then it lost the wireless. I became tired of it and reinstalled Win7. It took 3 tries to get it to work.

Now I 3 folders I want to delete. Win.old, win.old(1), and win.old(2). Problem is, the OS thinks they are system folders and won't let me delete them, even as an admin.

Suggestions please?

 

I'm using a Dell Latitude E6400 with backlit keyboard as well. Like you, I had problems with the upgrade route but, they were different problems. I upgraded Windows 8.1.

I used the Media Creation Tool to create a full install DVD and did a clean install rather than an upgrade and Win 10 is working just fine.

If you were still running Windows 10, those Windows.old folders wouldn't have been a problem removing because the were Windows 7 folders. Windows 10 would have told you that you couldn't go back to your old OS if you removed the Windows.old folder(s).

But, because you're back in Windows 7 you may not be able to remove them because they're also Windows 7.

 

I'll give it a try. Thank you.

 

@DavidGP

Your first suggestion did the trick. Thank you so much!

Freeing up over 11 gig on a 160 gig drive is no small deal. When did 160 gig become small?

Of course, I use a 128Gig thumb drive for backups. Since reinstalling the OS did not reformat the HD my backup wasn't needed. I'm still used to XP, I bought this computer used with the OS already on it.

Since a lot of stuff on this computer is CAD work (a lot of PCBs and 3D prints) I don't think I'll fill this system anytime soon. Now if it were photographs...