Linux Mint Forums

I had to use my Windows 10 laptop and shit happened, it downloaded and prepared an upgrade which I do not want, so I disabled and interrupted it. What is left is the $WINDOWS.~BT folder and I have a problem removing it -from Linux Mint.
I know I have removed $WINDOWS.~BT before but now those files seem to be blocked for removal even for Mint.
And no, the Windows partition is NOT in a hibernated state, that is not the issue.

Possibly try it from a live cd rather than installed linux?
Try opening Nemo as root and look at the ownership of the file.


Or....It's just a reminder of why you moved to Linux in the first place? Sorry, not helpful, I know.

lsemmens wrote: ⤴Fri Nov 09, 2018 9:36 pm Possibly try it from a live cd rather than installed linux?
Try opening Nemo as root and look at the ownership of the file.


Or....It's just a reminder of why you moved to Linux in the first place? Sorry, not helpful, I know.

Well, yes, it actually is. But can't do yet completely without it.
Since it's a home edition rather than a professional edition it stays vulnerable for the upgrades.

I did try it with the Mint19 live CD, but alas. I'll look at the ownership.

All rights are read and write. I also tried it in the terminal using rm -f -r -d

Hello, vansloneker.

The Windows directory name $WINDOWS.~BT is tricky under Linux.
Reason:
Linux will intepret the substring $WINDOWS as the content of the (not existing) environment variable WINDOWS. $WINDOWS expands to an empty string. As a result, without escaping the $ character from the Linux shell the directory name $WINDOWS.~BT will be understood as .~BT

Try or instead.
Note:
In case your current location is not the parent directory of $WINDOWS.~BT you will have to prefix the corresponding pathname to $WINDOWS.~BT.

In case the command which you execute does not work, please, post the complete commandline which you executed plus the error message which the command displayed.

HTH,
Karl

Thanks for this explanation Karlchen.
I tried both commands, and all I got was an endless list of failures. The list was so long the command and first returns are no longer visible in the terminal for me. But the error was the same on all:Operation not supported

Hello, vansloneker.

For such cases, where the screen output is so long that it exceeds the default terminal screen buffer, you can temporarily resize this terminal buffer from the default value (1000 lines or maybe 2000 lines) to 10,000 lines e.g. or even 20,000 lines).
Having only the end of a very long screen output is not particularly helpful.

Yet, I wonder a bit whether it may not be good luck that so far you have not succeeded in deleting the directory sub-tree $WINDOWS.~BT.
You interrupted an ongoing Windows 10 update operation.
This in itself may not have been the wisest thing to do.
I have got no clue which damage may have been caused to your Windows 10 installation. May be none, maybe something which can be repaired, maybe something which cannot be repaired easily or not at all. I do not know, because there is no Windows 10 on any of my machines.

I wonder a bit whether permitting Windows 10 to restart and finish the interrupted update operation would not be the right approach.
I suspect that maybe deleting $WINDOWS.~BT is going to cause major trouble on Windows 10.

You had not explained how precisely you had interrupted the ongoing Windows 10 update. In case it had been done by shutting down the machine forcefully, chances are that the Windows filesystem is not clean and that this is the root cause why you cannot delete $WINDOWS.~BT.
So maybe the first step of trouble shooting should be running an chkdsk on the Windows disk partition, where $WINDOWS.~BT exists. Presumably this partition is "drive C:" in Windows speak.

Best regards,
Karl

Could it be that actually $WINDOWS.~BT is named $windows.~bt? (Pay attention to the different capitalization. Linux is case sensitive.) - Hm. A Windows Explorer screenshot, which I came across, suggests it is really spelt $WINDOWS.~BT, i.e. all uppercase letters.

Would it not be smarter following advice given by Windows users / experts on how to cleanup $WINDOWS.~BT, in order to clean it up properly, instead of resorting to Linux Mint, which does not know anything about the relevance of $WINDOWS.~BT for Windows 10?

How to delete $windows BT ?

Remove the Windows BT Folder

I think there are about 50,000 files in $WINDOWS.~BT. The Windows still works, and if it should not, I can revert to a clone previously made. It's all a big waste of gigs on the SSD however.

The installed Windows version at least I managed to my preferences. My experience with the last upgrade was very negative.

Actually if the message from Windows about the upgrade comes, a hard shutdown is best to do. A normal shutdown will trigger the upgrade process one wants to avoid.

Perhaps you have already come across this What Is the $WINDOWS.~BT Folder, and Can You Delete It? on how to remove the folder from within Windows. If not maybe it's worth to have a look.

By the way, you could trick Windows to prevent it from automatically downloading and updating your system. This is what I do and here is how to do it:
https://www.howtogeek.com/226722/how-wh ... indows-10/

Unfortunately for what I was doing when the upgrade occurred I needed the wired connection.

But I found this which I will also try.

I also used O&O ShutUp10 and checked it about every time I used W10 but at any moment Windows can simply revert the settings.

The copy of W10H on this laptop is genuine en legitimate.
On another machine for experiment I had installed an unactivated Pro version, with some hacking overcome the unactivated limitations and used Group Policy Editor to stop it from upgrading. It was a lot of worked but it still works and in the end less work than keeping the laptop with the activated Home version 'clean'.

There are some guides on the internet to enable GPE on Home, but previously (on W7) I never had success with those. But might give it a try.

To disable Windwoes updates, in the past, all that was needed was to tell windwoes that you were on a metered connection in your settings somewhere, Haven't tried it lately 'cause I don't like winwoes any more.

Yes, this works for every single wifi connection, but not for wired connections.

did you try a live mint with a root file manager? you can also boot minixp from https://www.hirensbootcd.org/old-versions/ and try delete it there

Not sure what you mean with a root file manager but I have tried it from a live CDUSB running file manager as root.

vansloneker wrote: ⤴Sun Nov 11, 2018 1:23 pm Not sure what you mean with a root file manager but I have tried it from a live CDUSB running file manager as root.

yes that's what i meant. i did notice that when i'm booted in my windows7 all linux partitions are available except mint19 tara. i access my linux partitions with Paragon ExtFS for Windows

maybe try a different linux, i often use http://www.porteus.org/ for booting live to delete files from my windows partition

karlchen wrote: ⤴Sat Nov 10, 2018 7:40 pm...Would it not be smarter following advice given by Windows users / experts on how to cleanup $WINDOWS.~BT, in order to clean it up properly, instead of resorting to Linux Mint, which does not know anything about the relevance of $WINDOWS.~BT for Windows 10?

How to delete $windows BT ?

Remove the Windows BT Folder

Ahem, I finally deleted it following the general Windows way. You were right about that, Karlchen. I hate to had to do it that way but that's how it was.
But it still puzzles me why it couldn't be deleted from Linux.
I checked the version and I am still on 1709, Fall Update from last year.
I followed this guide and installed Group Policy Editor. At first, I got stuck at the demand for .net framework 3.5
Turned out, this is already in the system but needs to be enabled.
Via GPE I hope to have finally disabled the upgrades.

I very much appreciate all replies I received on this problem! Thank you all very much!