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Hello

Today I unearthed an old Windows 7 based laptop.

Fingers crossed, I started it up. It started to update. 4 hrs later it had updated to Windows 10 (latest version) and works like a dream.

Only problem is there is a lot of rubbish wasting Disk space. In particular Windows.old which, in turn contains another Window.old sub-directory.

Looking through the dates, it is clear many of these files have been accessed and probably updated during the upgrade process. I don't know how to ascertain just which, if any, of these files are still needed. I guess they may be providing an authentication path.

Has anyone any idea. It's worth quite a few gigabytes to me!

TIA

Terry

Terry,

Windows.old is only there if you need to revert back to the old OS within 10 days (according to Microsoft).

The proper way to remove it go into File Explorer, C: drive properties....Disk Cleanup, then click the Clean up System Files and select Previous Windows Installation

You may refer to https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/hel ... of-windows

HTH,
Jamal

Thanks Jamal
All sorted.

Terry

As a result of following the recommendations of Jamal I ended up with a totally clean version of Windows (latest version).

It had no pre-installed anti-virus software on it. As a result, Windows Defender is not switched off.

Windows defender, on the face of it, appears to offer just as much protection as many extra-cost proprietary packages.

It seems logical to me that MS would use its own software to protect its own O/S.

Unfortunately I can find nothing that enables me to make a sensible comparison. Defender just gives me a reference to the latest virus definitions. Whereas my main main machine, has all the bells and whistles of a proprietary package which makes much of the number of virus definitions it protects against. ("GigaDefs")

Any thoughts on the matter would be welcome.

Thanks

Terry

Terry,

Terry wrote:Unfortunately I can find nothing that enables me to make a sensible comparison. Defender just gives me a reference to the latest virus definitions. Whereas my main main machine, has all the bells and whistles of a proprietary package which makes much of the number of virus definitions it protects against. ("GigaDefs")

Any thoughts on the matter would be welcome.

Anecdotal: usage here: Defender, but regular scan with Linux based Desinfec't
https://www.heise.de/download/product/desinfect-71642
Which is a Linux Live DVD or USB stick with 4 different scan engines, compiled by IMO best german computer magazine.

Takes time to process, often good time to take the backup machine for a spin...
Was good enough to clean 2 infections found on machines of friends who called me after issues copped up,
Once reinstall was necessary as machine would not boot after clean and I refused to try a fix.

Backup still #1 defense, as ransom attacks will loose much of their threat potential

my 0.02€
thomas

Thanks Thomas
Interesting article
Terry

Terry wrote: Defender just gives me a reference to the latest virus definitions. Whereas my main main machine, has all the bells and whistles of a proprietary package which makes much of the number of virus definitions it protects against. ("GigaDefs")
Any thoughts on the matter would be welcome.

Using (only) Defender for some years now (with an occassional house-cleaning by desinfect )- nothing to complain.
Apart from one point, where i simply can't see why MS does nothing for years now: The defender tabpage re virus-definitions simply lies. Last week unearthed wife's laptop to prepare for a short journey. Connected with LAN to my network. After an hour of work i had a look into defenders, only to read: "you are safe, all definitions are up to date" - where latest search for updates was 2 months old ! WTF??? I think, one of the first things most people do after starting their machine is looking for mails and visit some websites - with 2 month old security?

On my own machine i have an entry in autostart to call MpCmdRun.exe (in defender folder) - so i'm pretty safe. Yes, it slows system start, waiting for MS to do the updates, but IMHO it's well worth the time. Only, why isn't that the default?

Hi Karl

Thanks.

I've had similar messages from the proprietary packages: "You are safe ....." when the definitions are out of date.

Makes little sense to me.

Terry