Duplicate files ?

[Guest]

I recently installed Vista Ultimate on a new laptop which had Vista Home
Premium already preinstalled . I installed a program that fouled up my
installation so I reinstalled windows. I have a 160 GB HDD installed in this
laptop and very few programs installed and recently I noticed that I have
used 48 GB of space on the drive. I looked at my files and I have a Windows
folder and 2 Windows old folders which appear to contain the same data as the
Windows folder. Can I delete these folders so that I can claim back the disc
space that they are using.

Also I cannot seem to be able to install Acrobat Reader 8 and am wondering
if these files are preventing me from me installing it. Each time I get a
message that the program does not seem to have a valid windows installer.

 

[Don]

I recently installed Vista Ultimate on a new laptop which had Vista Home
Premium already preinstalled . I installed a program that fouled up my
installation so I reinstalled windows. I have a 160 GB HDD installed in this
laptop and very few programs installed and recently I noticed that I have
used 48 GB of space on the drive. I looked at my files and I have a Windows
folder and 2 Windows old folders which appear to contain the same data as the
Windows folder. Can I delete these folders so that I can claim back the disc
space that they are using.

Yes, as long as you are certain that they contain no important personal
data like Address Book, pictures, mpeg's, etc.

Also I cannot seem to be able to install Acrobat Reader 8 and am wondering
if these files are preventing me from me installing it. Each time I get a
message that the program does not seem to have a valid windows installer.

Have you disabled UAC? I believe that Acrobat 8 is one of those rare
programs which actually requires UAC to install correctly.

 

[Guest]

Thanks Don, but i had found the instructions for removing the files in the
knowledge base. I have UAC turned on but the program still will not install.

 

[Curious]

Ron,
When you reinstalled you did a clean install into the partition that had
your old installation. Therefore Windows saved many of the files from your
old installation in "Windows.old" folder.
Once you have copied from the .old folder you need you can delete it since
it is not being used in any way in your new installation.