Top Tip

An incorrectly edited registry can render your system unusable - see our seperate tutorial on creating a restore point to back up your registry if you're not confident in what you're doing.

Restoring A Missing Recycle Bin

It's not unknown for users to lose the ability to access the recycle bin, there are numerous reasons for this but it's most often caused by a corrupt Registry, or an installed program that attempts to provide some form of Recycle bin protection.

A simple registry change is all that's required to restore the recycle bin back to full working order.

  • Click the Start button, and select Run from the menu.
  • Type in regedit in to the dialog box and hit Enter.
  • Navigate to the registry key:
    HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Bit Bucket
  • You should see a keyword Value Called NukeOnDelete
  • To switch the recycle bin on set the value for this key to 0. To switch the re-cycle bin off set it to 1.

Once you exit the registry editor and re-start Microsoft Windows the recycle bin should be available



This page last updated December 27th 2009 Bookmark and Share