I'm new at discussing the OS of Windows and the like; so please be kind. Now, I did upgrade from 8 to 8.1. All things being the same, I want to go back to 8. I've been coursing in this forum and found different ideas I can utilize. I know about win.old; nevertheless I cannot find it anywhere in my files or folders. Where did it go??? I checked in This PC but for naught... If someone could help me, it would be appreciated. Thank you and God bless you.
Usually the windows.old Folder is located on the root drive of the operating system. In this case I would kindly suggest looking in This PC --> C:\. It will also be displayed as Local Disk. Now about you wanting to downgrade back to Windows 8. There are two options downgrade by upgrading to Windows 8 or do a clean install back to Windows 8.
If you install win8.1 over(i.e. replace) win8, you'll have windows.old, but since you said you did a upgrade, there won't be a windows.old. I've heard something like "reset windows" then you'll end up with win8, haven't tried it myself.
Or you could try System Restore if the upgradation keeps the Restore Point. However I highly doubt that if Reset can't do it whether System Restore can.
just make a backup from win8 install partition before upgrading to win8.1. I was happy to go back easily to my previous win 8.0 installation after win 8.1 wasn't satisfying.
But why do you want to go back to Windows 8.1 to Windows 8? There's nothing that's there n Win8 which is not in Win 8.1
There can be any number of reasons why he wishes to go back to Windows 8 (build 9200) shrugs. One of them could be stability, performance, etc. Best choice would be to back up your data and do a clean install in my opinion. You don't necessary have to choose that option however I don't recommend an upgrade back to 8.0 from 8.1.
Honestly I don't know why they have the windows.old If someone finds a definitive answer, I'm sure we'd all love to hear about its uses.
Probably if you do a clean install without formatting your hard drive and require your app data, System/Hardware drivers (from system32) from your previous installation for your current installation..Otherwise I don't know of any particular use for this Windows.Old
Smorgan, I tried to find Windows.old in the root directory, previously. It's just not there; most likely because it is an upgrade. You understand... Putting everything aside, I wanted to make sure I could do that, downgrade by upgrading to Windows 8 without any inference from Windows 8.1. Like I said, I'm new to this forum. Anyhow, I'll load the setup file in Windows 8 and go from there. Thank you very much. Salute!
If you did an upgrade with anything except the full keep programs and settings option, you'll have a c:\windows.old It's a folder, and the files that were not transferred to your new windows install are located there. I'm guessing it's so you can scavenge old program data files or documents and such...
Come on it has always been that way if upgrading so user can revert back to older OS even with service packs. Edit. and Murphy78 is correct you still have windows.old folder that you can use to copy data and document files e.c.t if needed. Normally if everything goes ok windows will keep your user files and documents. But the windows.old folder is there as a backup until you are satisfied then it can be removed
I love "Please excuse me..." threads. ) If W8-1 and W8-0 are same for you (they really are BTW), then there is no need to downgrade. Value your time. BTW: IMHO the upgrade method doesn't create Windows.OLD, still you can search by running (AS ELEVATED) C:\Windows\System32\cleanmgr.exe (Cleaning Manager). It will display everything redundant. Just DON'T click to "clean". (Elevation is important here, because non-elevated cleanmgr.exe will not give you all folders.)
??? Am I reading this correctly? Pardon me for saying; but that's I did. I used the option "keep full programs and settings." I guess I'm low on the totem pole when it comes to code. Needless to say, there is no windows.old file on my machine anywhere; yet when you upgrade (say XP to 7), I used "keep full program and settings," and I had the windows.old file. Oh well, back to the drawing board...
I believe I mistakenly thought that windows.old did not get created on the full upgrade. I guess it makes it no matter what kind of upgrade you do. If you're done with it just press winkey+s to open search box, type cleanmgr and press ctrl-shift-enter to run it as admin. Then check the box to delete the windows.old folder.
Once again, I'M the one who is mistaken. Apparently, windows.old wasn't created on the full upgrade because it's not there.. I did have a full upgrade; therefore it wasn't created. My apologizes. So why is it when I did go to the full upgrade from XP to 7, it was there??? Strange... At any rate, I'm using the file Windows 8.0 Pro VL x64 en-US Pre-Activated Sep2013 loaded on the 13th to upgrade my OS from 8.1 to 8, and use then use Windows 8.1 AIO 7in1 x64 en-US Sep10-2013 so that I can activate it. Yes???