How to delete useless Windows system files?

Question

Somebody just show me how to delete old Windows system files for reversing back to old OS on my laptop. My laptop used 60GB before my cleanup. It is running Windows 7. After using disk cleanup to delete those files reserved for reversing to Vista, it now only uses 22GB. I want to do the same thing for my desktop which initially used 4GB but now used 18GB. I mainly use the desktop for surfing and only installed one game which used less than 1GB. Clearly there must be useless files.

But when I running disk cleanup on my desktop (running XP), I don't have the option to delete old system files like I have on Windows 7 laptop. Can anyone show me how to delete those useless system files reserved for reversing to old operating system on XP? (Note that I have emptied trash can and turned off system restore. So these two are no issue.) Thanks.

Answer 1

You shouldn't have any 'old' Windows files on XP. If you do, it's likely you have two installations of XP on the drive. One that works, the other doesn't....



Backup the Boot.ini file. To do this, click Start, Run, type XCopy /H C:\Boot.ini C:\Boot.org

then press Enter and F.



The first task is to determine which entry in Boot.ini is valid. To do this, click Start, right-click My Computer, and click Properties. Click Advanced.



Under Startup and Recovery, click Settings.



Click the Edit button. You should see something similar to this (blank lines inserted for clarity)

XP Home used as an example.





[Boot Loader]



Default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS



timeout=30



[Operating Systems]



multi(O)disk(0)rdisk(O)partition(l)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP



Home" /fastdetect



multi(O)disk(0)rdisk(O)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP



Home" /fastdetect





After the first opening quote, insert #1 and a space.



After the second opening quote, insert #2 and a space.



The [Operating Systems] section should now be similar to this.





[Operating Systems]



multi(O)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(l) \WINDOWS="#1 Microsoft Windows XP



Home" /fastdetect



multi(O)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="#2 Microsoft Windows XP Home" /fastdetect





Click File, Exit, and Yes to save the changes and close Notepad.

Restart the computer. The OS list on startup will show something like



#1 Microsoft Windows XP Home #2 Microsoft Windows XP Home



Choose #1. If it boots, that is the functional copy. If not, restart and choose #2.



The second task is to remove the invalid entry from Boot.ini.



Log on to an account with administrator's rights. Click Start, right-click My Computer, and click Properties.



Click Advanced. Under Startup and Recovery, click Settings.



Under Default operating systems, select the item (identified by #1 or #2) corresponding to the working version of Windows.



Click the Edit button. If #1 is the functional copy, delete the line containing #2; if #2 is the functional copy, delete the line containing #1. Click File, Exit, and Yes to save the changes and close Notepad.



Click OK and OK, then restart the computer.



Run Ccleaner to clean up any left-over files...



http://www.ccleaner.com/



© arou42

Answer 2

Do delete any Win32 files or things that came with the computer default. You'll just F(_)Ck up your computer and no one will be able to help you then. (Unless you re-install your Win 7 again. But changes are you don't even have the CD for it.)

Answer 3

Windows XP never had any windows.old files.



These windows.old files began with Windows Vista.

Answer 4

Try CCleaner. The best free cleaner software around. You can clean many thing in your pc by choosing options in this software.