See this link go to Use Disk Cleanup for the instruction on how to do so. You may also follow this article by Andre Da Costa on how to free up disk space in Windows. Was this reply helpful? Yes No. Sorry this didn't help. Thanks for your feedback. The Disk Cleanup is not working, it sees the windows installation files and when it tries to clear them, it doesn't. It doesn't even detect the Window's BT Folder. We found this thread see Ruth Buruga's response. Other Community members find it helpful.
Give it a try. Just make sure to access Control Panel as Admin before running the command as stated on the response. I cannot upgrade windows remove $windows. bt windows 10 free download I get rid of this errant folder.
Who is the genius that decided it was a good idea to create temporary files that cannot be accessed by the administrator account? No, don't answer that. Just tell me how I get rid of this folder. These folders are created by Windows during the upgrade process. To know more about your issue, may we know the following:. I have an inherent allergy to answering questions from tech support specialists that have already been answered. Have I performed the troubleshooting steps outlined in the previous post?
Of course. Wasn't that obvious from my response? But here's the real problem. Did YOU read the linked thread? Because if you had, you would have seen that t he solution offered didn't work for anyone who replied there. That "solution" failed for me in exactly the same way. Needless to say, Disk Cleanup doesn't work either. No error messages with Disk Cleanup, it just fails to do anything.
When Windows feature updates work, they are great. When they don't work, they leave a mess behind that is impossible to clean up. Again I have to ask, w ho is the genius that decided it was a good idea to create temporary files that cannot be accessed remove $windows. bt windows 10 free download the administrator account? As someone who used to write systems-level code, had that person been working for me, they would have been fired. But lets move on to some of the ridiculous mess the remove $windows.
bt windows 10 free download Windows update left behind. After a delete of the entire folder failed for access violations, I went in and took ownership of the entire folder under remove $windows.
bt windows 10 free download Administrator account. This was a difficult process to figure out and time consuming as tens of thousands of files had their ownership remove $windows. bt windows 10 free download changed. That is where I encountered the following:.
Wait, this is a temp folder. How can any files be in use there? There were dozens remove $windows. bt windows 10 free download dozens of these problems. See a few more examples below:. I even got a in-use error for a file that is part of software I wrote! I guess the upgrade process copies files from your current installation into the temp folder in prep for the upgrade.
After a few rounds of checking that those files-in-use actually existed where they belonged outside the temp folder, checking that the registry correctly pointed to the right location and not the temp folder, and then finally stopping the affected program or service and deleting the files, I got tired of that game.
But wait, there's more! When I booted back into Windows and tried to empty the recycle bin for files that had been deleted the "normal" way, there were additional problems. See the screen shot below:. These have already been deleted. There should be no need to provide additional permissions to empty the recycle bin. The average user won't have the technical chops to solve this problem.
Indeed, the Level 2 techs more than one of them who called back from Windows Support didn't have the chops to solve the problem either. After I waited a couple of days for a Level 2 tech to "check his sources" and get back to me with a solution, I gave up and spent way too much time figuring out how to do it myself.
There is no excuse for any of this - the lack of Administrator permissions in the temp folder, Windows inappropriately thinking it has an identically named system file open in a temp folder, and requiring permissions to delete items already in the recycle bin.
Also inexcusable: Level 2 techs who cannot solve what is obviously a wide-spread problem. I would post this issue in Feedback Hub, but that is a fool's errand. I'm not even sure what I'd call this post, and the problem is so tech-nerdy that it will never get an upvote, thus the issue will never get seen nor fixed going that route.
Instead of asking useless questions or suggesting "solutions" that you would have known do not work had you investigated, perhaps you could be useful by kicking this problem upstairs so that it actually gets fixed. Yeah, I'm disgusted with Microsoft. I didn't do anything a normal user wouldn't have done, and in so remove $windows.
bt windows 10 free download, I wound up with a problem even your Level 2 techs couldn't solve. That is a problem which needs to be corrected.
If you experience problems removing the content in the folder, review the post of Ferdz Amp remove $windows. bt windows 10 free download instructions on how to take ownership of a folder on this remove $windows. bt windows 10 free download.
I also suggest that you try to delete the files in Safe mode. Refer to this link on how to start your PC in safe mode in Windows That said, the particular issue of being unable to delete certain files or folders in Windows even as an Administrator by selecting and pressing delete is not new, although the very remove $windows.
bt windows 10 free download version explained here in attempting to remove those specific files may be unexpected for most. The reason the administrator cannot clear the contents from Program Files from even the recycle bin, is because the Program Files folders are system folders, meaning the system owns them, not the user.
Deleting them from a PB environment has zero effect on the permissions of those files, so they are still tagged the same way even after they are moved to the recycle bin in a PB Environment. That is why the remove $windows.
bt windows 10 free download is still requesting administrative permissions to delete those files. The change in default ownership of the Program Files folders specifically to System however, occurred in with Windows 8, approximately six years ago. In regards to the 10GBGB of space, you will get it back automatically after the default delay period elapses as part of the standard Windows Update process in Windows 10, which if my memory serves is either 60 or 90 days.
After that period of time elapses, Microsoft considers the probability very low that any issues due to that update will occur, and automatically deletes those files itself. Those files are what Windows uses to revert the installation to its' previous version any time there are errors that cause the device to be unusable. That is not the update, but rather is the backup of your known-good configuration when the system attempts to update, which as mentioned above, is why it is automatically retained for a set period, and then automatically deleted after that time period elapses.
There is nothing wrong with Windows, but rather the issue here is gaps in understanding of how the current version s of Windows actually function when doing certain things. Such gaps are fully understandable, since it is not as if Microsoft sends a manual with every Windows Installation, or even if they did, the overwhelming majority of us would not read it anyway until we run into an issue like this where it will not do what we want to do the way we want to do it. MaRoselle Cag's response was not only a good answer, but the correct answer.
Safe Mode's entire purpose is to prevent anything but the bare-minimum Windows processes, services, and drivers from loading. Once the administrator has ownership of remove $windows. bt windows 10 free download files, then you may then delete those files at any time of your choosing.
Choose where you want to search below Search Search the Community. Search the community and support articles Windows Windows 10 Search Community member. I've tried to use the Command Prompt bat, the one that's like posted everywhere. But I keep getting an access denied message. What can I do? This thread is locked. You can follow the question or vote as helpful, but you cannot reply to this thread.
I have the same question Report abuse. Details required :. Cancel Submit. Previous Next. John Sarc Microsoft Agent. Let us know what happens after freeing up drive space. How satisfied are you with this reply? Thanks for your feedback, it helps us improve the site.
In reply to John Sarc's post on February 6, In reply to GaiaRail's post on February 6, Let us know if the response helps. In reply to John Sarc's post on February 11, This doesn't work either.
Jesebel Ova Microsoft Agent. In reply to BruceMorris's post on May 14,
