[RESOLVED] How Can This Be Possible?

Regarding this Dell XPS-8930:
I recently replaced a 500gb SSD drive that was several years old & had started having Windows 10 issues.
I installed the new drive (500gb SSD) & installed a fresh copy of Windows 10. After the installation was complete
and in booting up, there is 3 options for booting: Windows 1, windows 2, windows 3. number one being the default.

After searching the internet, I found a safe way to remove windows 2 & 3 . However, I wound up having a Windows.old
file that has 23gb. of data that I cannot delete. When trying to delete, it will first say that I need administrative permission
one time and then some other permission listed under C: Users. I have tried changing the permissions & now its so screwed up
I'm not sure what the correct move would be in order to take full control of this PC. Seems Dell could be the culprit in all the problems?

Any suggestions would be appreciated............

Having read this and your original post on the same subject my inclination would be to start from scratch. If you need to save any files/data do so first to an external/USB drive.

Windows.old indicates that the install that's currently operating was an upgrade from a previous version of Windows so it was not a totally clean install to begin with... probably not what you wanted anyway. When installing do NOT select "upgrade". Select the "install windows only" option.

Disconnect all drives except the one you want to install the OS onto (DVD/CD disc drive is ok to leave connected). I would also re-enable whatever you changed in the BIOS to disable IPv4 and IPv6 that you mentioned in the previous thread.

Make sure you have the latest version of Win 10 on your install media: Wouldn't hurt to re-download and put that on your install USB (or DVD) drive now. https://www.microsoft.com/en-ca/soft...load/windows10

So now boot with the install media inserted (USB drive presumably) and follow instructions.. delete ALL available/shown partitions on the drive when shown and asked after you start the process and when they are ALL deleted follow the instructions to install Win10.

Note that this process will delete all data on the drive and you will be starting from scratch with a new install of Windows 10 so do be sure there's nothing on the current install and/or drive you want to save.

There are examples of the instructions you'll see on this site...

https://www.howtogeek.com/197559/how...10-on-your-pc/

Thanks for the reply, fink.

The only thing different in my install , was that I used Windows Media tool & my product key & then updated windows immediately after the install. That took several hours.

There were no other drives attached & the install was not the upgrade but the win install only! Over time, I have installed Windows 10 on many, many PCs & have never had this happen.
However, this is the first time I have tried doing it on a Dell XPS. I could not get to first base till I disabled those two items in the Bios.

Early this AM I got on the Dell web site & got the system updated with all of Dell's drivers,etc for the XPS 8930 series. The system is working flawlessly now. The only obstacle is the Win.old

My research tells me that its ok to delete it. And of course, the question is how???? I would hate to start all over, when all is going ok..............

For now it's just taking up space so it's not really a pressing, show stopping problem. Have you tried using Windows cleanup tool to get rid of it? It usually works fine but can take a lot of time.

https://www.howtogeek.com/348635/use...ur-hard-drive/

Also worth noting is that it's supposed to self delete ten days after the install so you may just want to wait and see if that happens.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/...7-7567d69dbb74

fink, I cannot seem to get that windows cleanup tool. Every download option on that "howtogeeks" brings up a program called "Wave Browser" it seems to have control on all downloads..........

It should be installed on your computer already. type 'disk cleanup' in the taskbar and it should open.

Also, I don't see any download links at all on that page. Can you post a screenshot?

Wave Browser is not a safe program to install/use/download. I don't know where you got it but if it's installed on your PC follow these instructions:

https://blog.malwarebytes.com/detect...optional-wave/

UPDATE:
I just want to mention that I finally got rid of "windows.old"
I had been using the anti-virus program "Avast" & it did the job..........