Delete those damn leftover file from previous installation of Windows

I was pretty cool with the Windows 10 Preview installed on my work laptop.  When I looked closer to my system, I realized that, since I did a upgrade on an existing Windows 8.1 system, there were some system file left over.  Specifically, there's a Windows.old folder that was huge and useless in my harddisk now.

I thought, no problem.  I should be able to just drag and drop the folder in my desktop Recycle Bin.  In fact, I even changed the property  of the recycle bin so that it permanently deleted files.  It should be ultra easy, right?

Nope.

It turns out that because of the permission of a lot of these system files, I was unable to delete them.  I was like, damn it, it's my computer.  If I want to delete file, I want to delete it damn it.

So here's how I got that damn Windows.old folder deleted:

• Right click on the folder I needed to delete, and select "Properties".
• Click on "Security" tab, and then click the "Advanced ..." button.
• At the "Owner" entry, click "Change".
• Change the owner to "Everyone"
• Click the checkbox to apply such owner change to all the subfolders.
• Once completed, give "Everyone" full control.
• While you are still on the "Advanced Security Settings for xxxxx" windows, check the "Replace all child object permissions entries ...." checkbox.

Asus EeeSlate with Windows 10 Preview

I was not happy of my Asus EeeSlate for a while, and yesterday I was so fed up that I decided to do somehting because of couple of reasons:

• The bluetooth connection problem, which the driver has to be reinstalled every single time I turn on the machine, is getting unbearably painful.
• The device is getting damn slow.  It's not particularly fast in the first place, but now it's just slow.
• The machine has only 3Gb of free space left, which doesn't make sense as I only have the OS and Microsoft Office 2013 on it and that's pretty much it.

 Still, a few reasons kept me from reinstalling OS until now:

• Laziness: it does take time.
• Windows Media Center was coming with my last installation of Windows 8 and then migrated to Windows 8.1.  Reinstalling a new OS on EeeSlate means I will lost Windows Media Center.

So here's the steps I did:

• Connect a USB external DVDR drive with a USB hub which also connect to USB mouse, and a USB keyboard.  And then I connect an USB external harddisk to the second USB port.  I booted up the system with TrueImage 2010 boot disc, and with that I backed up the whole harddisk (which is like 58Gb).  That way, if something does wrong, I can roll back my current Windows 8.1 .
• Once backup completed, I boot up the machine with Windows 10 Preview by holding the F2 key of the keyboard.  And with that I followed instructions and completed the Windows 10 Preview installation.
• All the necessary drives are already there, so I do the following to make EeeSlate usable at my workplace:
• Install Google Drive.
• Install Microsoft Office 2013 with SP1
• Set up SketchBook Pro 6.2.5 in portable app fashion.
• Re-calibrate the screen/digitizer.  (it was not perfectly done, but good enough for daily use, and plus I was ... tired .... )

The whole process took me about 4 to 5 hours.

When I freshly done with OS setup, I got 44.6Gb free out of 59.2Gb.  After I installed Office 2013 and other app settings, I still have 39.1Gb.  And then I have Windows update on everything, and now I have 37.8Gb left.  This is way better than the 3Gb free space situation I had before the OS reinstall.