Clean up old folders while adjusting their authorizations

[Hadden]

I reinstalled win10 some days ago, however - like ever - I still have problems to erase old folders: expecially Windows and the recycle bin (which is 80gb of inaccesible folder, in Data partition). I see that with treesize, and I know they are there.

Well, probably can be easily done by mounting drive with a live (linux) ISO and erasing that folders, but I was wondering if it also be done via windows itself.

There are specific softwares to restore/clean the bin paths/authorizations (eg: S-1-5-21-528370864-3108859329-1762512006-500) and to easily access to folders for the active (admin) user without overchanging the auths? (windows doesn't like that).

 

[BoraMurdar]

Try with in built Windows Disk Cleaner (it can find old folders and give you the rights to delete them).

Or you try by Unlocker (Portable version also available)
Third option is of course to delete them offline from some bootable environment

 

[Hadden]

Ok, I'll look at WDC (I didn't considered as the files aren't part of the current system) and check further for the bootable way (I used a win10PE but I really don't know how the auth should be adjusted to make them usable).
And I'll try unlocker, that I don't use since a while

 

[XIII]

Try with in built Windows Disk Cleaner (it can find old folders and give you the rights to delete them).

This will work when Windows Disk Cleaner is used as admin. It will cover "Old Windows Installation Files" and "Old Windows Update Files". When I did this off the bat on my Windows 10 upgrade, it cleared 19-20 GB. It also got rid of my Windows.old folder.

 

[BoraMurdar]

This might help you also...
http://winaero.com/blog/how-to-take...ll-access-to-files-and-folders-in-windows-10/

TakeOwnershipEx program can give you the full rights to target you specify http://winaero.com/download.php?view.16

 

[_CyberGhosT_]

This will work when Windows Disk Cleaner is used as admin. It will cover "Old Windows Installation Files" and "Old Windows Update Files". When I did this off the bat on my Windows 10 upgrade, it cleared 19-20 GB. It also got rid of my Windows.old folder.

Right I was just about to say that, in the search type in "clean" and in the results it will show, then Right click
and select Run As Admin, or it may not show them or clean them, its best to run that tool as admin for best results.

 

[Hadden]

Even with admin ("run as Admin"), WDC didn't show the files.

However I removed most of the unwanted files - all the old bin - and several locked old programs and windows file - with a live linux mint x64.

And I discovered the files I cannot remove from D:\Windows - either from Linux - were a part of some invalid NTFS junctions - so probably were already erased or just placeholders.
The remaining files - locked files, mostly junctions in D:\Windows - has been removed by Unlocker

Thanks ;P