[palmer]

I have 8.1 Pro. Does it mean I can delete that crap? Also is there any way I can avoid an automatic install of 10? I turned off automatic updates. Last question (promise), is 15G a lot for C:\Windows? Any way to shrink that down a bit?

[chrisser]

I have 8.1 Pro. Does it mean I can delete that crap? Also is there any way I can avoid an automatic install of 10? I turned off automatic updates. Last question (promise), is 15G a lot for C:\Windows? Any way to shrink that down a bit?

We jumped from 7 directly to 10. My only experience with 8 was installing it and finding it incompatible with some of our apps, so I didn't spend much time on it.

MS makes the auto install pretty difficult to avoid - the spent a lot of time changing the mechanism prior to the mandatory upgrade to try to catch everyone. Turning off automatic updates should do it. OTOH, there are probably security updates you should install, so I wouldn't not update for an extended period.

15GB seems kinda high. Inside the Windows folder is a logfiles folder (probably under system32). Depending on the settings for purging the logs, this folder can potentially grow to enormous size. First place I look when troubleshooting a large Windows folder.