disk space needed to be able to roll back after windows 10 upgrade?

Hi:

I own an Acer W510 tablet with 64Gb emmc.

At this moment i have Windows 8.1 with nearly 13gb of free disk space.

With this 13gb free space available, Is it enough for the folders windows.old, $Windows.~BT and $Windows.~WS to be created without problem, so i can roll back windows 10 to windows 8.1 after upgrade?

I want to install windows 10, get my free windows 10 license, and then roll back to windows 8.1, to be able in the near future, when windows 10 is more stable, to upgrade for free.

But I fear that with the disk space i have, perhaps the upgrade to windows 10 will be successful but without the option to roll back because the windows 8.1 backup folders weren't created for lack of disk space....

Can you confirm that the disk space i have available is enough to install windows 10 and then be able to roll back to windows 8.1?

thanks

Accepted answers

All comments

billsey

It's going to depend not so much as to how much space W10 takes up, but how much data needs to be left behind, especially in Windows.old. Remember that everything from Documents, Downloads, Music, Pictures, etc. are copied into the Windows.old folder, so if you have more than 8-10GB of data there you will run out during the upgrade. I'd backup first and delete extraneous stuff to free up as much room as possible before starting. Don't forget to uninstall programs you don't ever use too.

lanosalf

thanks,

1) Does the upgrade process stop if there is no space available to sotore the old windows backup?

see here:

http://community.acer.com/t5/Windows-10/Windows-10-upgrade-on-Aspire-ES1-111M-32GB-EMMC-drive/m-p/376320#M1151

and here:

http://community.acer.com/t5/Windows-10/Windows-10-upgrade-on-Aspire-ES1-111M-32GB-EMMC-drive/m-p/376666#M1194

2) Also, if i connect an external usb hdd, does the windows 10 upgrade program really use it to store the backup?

as stated here:

https://www.thurrott.com/windows/windows-10/4547/upgrade-a-small-tablet-or-laptop-to-windows-10

the information regarding this matter is non conclusive in the web

3) if, when windows 10 is already functioning, i use the windows 8 recovery partition (the one that came with came from factory with the tablet) Do i have the option to restore to windows 8 without loosing my appps? (and then update to windows 8.1)

thanks again

sharky25k

Hello,

For 1 and 2, there is a question for this in windows support

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-10/help-upgrade-windows-10

How do I free up space for the upgrade?

You'll need at least 8 GB of free space to upgrade to Windows 10. If your PC doesn't have enough space, here are a few things you can try:

    Remove files or apps you no longer need.

    Use Disk Cleanup to free up space.

    Attach an external drive with enough free space to continue with the upgrade. Make sure to keep this external drive in a safe place after the upgrade, in case you need it for recovery options.

Please bear in mind that they don't tell you anything about the windows.old, they tell you just about recovery (I am not sure if this means also "downgrade" to w8.1)

For 3 I am not sure. I cannot guarantee that you key will still activate w8 in the first place if you upgraded from 8.1 to 10 (and did not roll back). Also, if you use the recovery partition to reintall windows 8 I think it will keep your files but I don't think it will keep your apps and settings (I never did it, but this is how I would expect to work). I can be wrong, and if anyone knows it better, please feel free to correct me.