Monday, November 22, 2010

Bugged by the bin

Regularly emptying the Recycle Bin makes it an ineffective tool for recovering deleted files. In the days of Windows 95 when the Recycle Bin was introduced, hard drives were small and computers were slow and emptying the bin was necessary to avoid the system grinding to a halt whenever you deleted a file. But with today's fast PCs having drives with hundreds of gigabytes of storage space it isn't necessary, especially when weighed against the trouble caused by being unable to recover a deleted file.

Unfortunately that desktop icon showing a full Recycle Bin is a constant reminder that your computer still contains files you threw out, and some people have an instinctive desire to empty it. If you are being bugged by your full Recycle Bin, try this simple solution. Change the icon for the full bin so that it is the same as the empty one.

  
Right-click the desktop and select Personalize, then in the Control Panel Personalization window click on Change desktop icons. Select the Recycle Bin (full) icon, click Change Icon, select the empty bin icon and click OK. Now you won't be able to see that the Recycle Bin is full so you won't be as tempted to empty it.
  • To recover deleted files that are not in the Recycle Bin, use Uneraser