

If the Windows.old folder exists in your evidence (see the figure below), typical artifacts, such as previously connected USB devices, will be located in that folder.
#Installation source registry key install
In addition, new registry hives are created and artifacts, such as the operating system install date, are changed to reflect the upgrade date and time. View of Windows installation/major upgrade Windows will automatically delete the Windows.old folder to free up space if the computer runs out of room or after a specific time frame. It can be used to restore your system to the old version of Windows, should something go wrong with the new version. The folder C:\Windows.old is created, which contains all the files and data from your previous Windows installation. Perhaps most importantly to forensic investigations, when Microsoft updates Windows, file locations and registry keys move or change, and new registry keys are created. Microsoft announced it will be releasing two major updates a year and has been naming them YYMM, as Wikipedia details: This could be a good thing for examiners…or it could be a bad thing. With this announcement, it appeared that Microsoft would be taking a page from Apple and OSX on how it does updates. In 2015, Microsoft announced that Windows 10 will be the last operating system they produced: In this blog, Training Director Jamey Tubbs describes other Windows operating system changes that could affect your forensic examinations. The login workflow was far from the only change in this anniversary update, however.

#Installation source registry key generator
In January, we released the AXIOM Wordlist Generator free tool and described in our white paper the changes to the Microsoft® Windows® 10 login workflow that affected password cracking practices.
