I have recently upgraded from windows vista to windows 7 and it will not allow me to delete the windows.old files, plural is correct for i have a few of them, for it says that i need permission from SYSTEM to make changes to that folder. And just as a side note I am the administrator on the laptop. What do I do?

Go to user account control settings,set to never notify and restart computer.Use disk-cleanup,check win.olds and do it.

Hi, To delete the Windows.old folder, follow these steps: 1. Click the Start button, type disk cleanup in the Start Search text box. Then right click Disk Cleanup and select Run as administrator. 2. When the Disk Cleanup dialog box comes up, select the drive that has the .old files on it and click OK. 3. The system scans for the files to be cleaned up and another dialog box opens with the selection. Click on the button labeled Clean up system files at the bottom of that dialog box. 4. The Disk Cleanup: Drive Selection dialog box will pop up again and select the drive that has the .old files on it. The system will perform another scan for the system files that need to be cleaned up. Wait while scanning the computer for unnecessary files. 5. After scanning, click the Disk Cleanup tab, and then look for the Previous Windows installations check box. 6. If you find the Previous Windows installations check box, click to select it, and then click OK. If you do not find this check box, proceed to the next step. 7. When you are prompted to confirm the removal of files, click Delete Files. 8. Wait while the system removes the files. You have now removed the Windows.old folder. Does it work? Regards,Arthur Li - MSFT

I think the best thing to do is to download the following registry hack: Add ownership, just google it. Take ownership of the folders that you want to delete by right clicking it and at that point you should be able to delete whatever you want. The only time I have not been able to delete after taking ownership is when I try to delete something which is being used by some program hope this helps here is the link to download the resitry hack: http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/add-take-ownership-to-explorer-right-click-menu-in-vista/