can I delete c:\swsetup ?

[Jawone]

I recently bought a new HP All In One PC with Win 10. I did a sloppy job of file transfer from my old HP PC Win 7. A number of files/folders relevant to Win 7 came along. Can I assume that these play no role in the  Win 10 process? If so, could I safely delete them? For instance --- system.sav swsetup Intel DIFX HP MS Sync Framework Online Services Playready. All are dated 2011-2013 which is the date related to the older Win 7 PC.  Also, I just finished upgrading the old Win 7 PC to Win 10, and these same files/folders are still there. Can they be deleted so I can remove unnecessary clutter? Thank you...Jeff

[WAWood]

@Jawone 

The simple answer is YES -- but there are two problems:

First, we have no way to get a list of ALL the stuff you can remove, so we have no way of telling which ones to do.

Second, in the same manner, we have no way to determine which ones are SAFE to remove and which ones are NOT.

So, my suggestion is that BEFORE you do this, you follow the steps below to make an Image Backup of your PC, that way, if something goes wrong after you remove something, you have a working instance to restore FROM.

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I personally prefer to use third-party Backup solutions as they tend to be both more flexible and more reliable than any built-in solutions.

Macrium Reflect (MR) provides a FREE version that can be used to image and restore partitions or entire drives.

What I recommend is the following:
1) Download and install Macrium Reflect (MR) from here: http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.aspx
2) Run MR and choose the option: "Create an image of the partition(s) required to backup and restore Windows" to write a full backup to an external drive or USB stick
3) Use the option to create a boot USB stick or CD

My experience is that MR, when using the High Compression option, typically can compress the saved image file to about 50% of the USED space in the OS partition. This means if you have an 80GB OS partition, and 40GB is used, MR only needs about 20GB to store the image file.

I use this all the time and it typically takes less than 15 minutes to do the image backup and about the same time or less to do a restore.

Plus, MR has the option to Add a Recovery Boot Menu entry. This allows you then to boot into WinRE, and you can then use that to do a restore -- when you can't boot into Windows!

NOW, you have the means to restore a full working system from the external drive or USB stick in only a few minutes.

[Jawone]

Hello and thanks WAWood!  This sounds interesting. I see that MS is going to do away with the onboard imaging tool, so it makes no sense to me to go that route. I would prefer to use a usb drive. Is there a method to predetermine  what the actual size of my OS partition is, so I can obtain the proper size USB stick?   Thank you, Jeff

[WAWood · Accepted solution]

@Jawone 

I already told you in my post that it's about 50% of the Used Space in the drive.

So, if your drive is 80GB and 40GB is used space, the USB stick needs to be 20GB.  But seeing how cheap these are these days, you should buy something slightly larger to be safe.

[Jawone]

Sorry for my misunderstanding. You were very concise in your explanation. I am looking at my "C" Drive>Properties which shows 73GB used space.  I assume that this is the OS Partition, since I see no other drives displayed in File Explorer>This PC. As I result, I will likely need a 64Gb USB drive?  Thank you again for your help....Jeff