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Windows 10 has been offered as a free upgrade for Windows 7, 8, and 8.1 users by Microsoft since July 2015. If you’re upgrading to Windows 10, I’ll explain why Windows 10 retains temporary files from your previous operating system, as well as outlining steps on how to clean up your temporary files to increase your storage space.
Note: To upgrade, users must be running Windows 7 Service Pack 1 or Windows 8 (Windows 8.1 Update). If you do not meet these prerequisites, then you might be able to still be able to upgrade to Windows 10, but you’ll need to download an ISO image from Microsoft.
Owners of these operating systems should see a Windows icon in their taskbar next to the clock, notifying them that they can reserve a free upgrade to Windows 10. If they choose to do so, a 3 GB file will be downloaded and placed on the computer’s local drive.
Windows icon in the taskbar. (Image Credit: Microsoft)
Disc space on the C: drive. (Image Credit: Daniel Petri)
Selecting properties for the C: drive. (Image Credit: Daniel Petri)
Selecting the Disk Cleanup option in Windows 10. (Image Credit: Daniel Petri)
Selecting files to clean up with the Windows 10 Disk Cleanup option. (Image Credit: Daniel Petri)
Deleting files with the Windows 10 Disk Cleanup option. (Image Credit: Daniel Petri)
By deleting temporary files, you acknowledge that Windows 10 can no longer revert to the previous OS. (Image Credit: Daniel Petri)
Progress bar for deletion of items. (Image Credit: Daniel Petri)
Resulting free space from Disk Cleanup in Windows 10. (Image Credit: Daniel Petri)
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