Disable Empty Recycle Bin Confirmation in Windows XP and Vista

When you try to empty the Recycle Bin using the Empty Recycle Bin context menu or from the Tasks pane, you’ll see the confirmation dialog as shown below:

Note that you can only disable the confirmation dialog shown when deleting a file or folder, but there is no option available in Windows to disable the empty Recycle Bin confirmation prompt. Here is a registry tweak to disable the empty recycle bin confirmation dialog in Windows XP and Windows Vista.

Using NirCmd to empty the Recycle Bin

We’ve covered the NirCmd tool earlier. You may use this tool to empty the Recycle Bin without any prompts.

Download Nircmd.zip from Nirsoft.net, unzip and extract the files to a folder. Move the file nircmd.exe to your Windows directory. To create a desktop shortcut to empty the Recycle Bin, use the following command:

Right-click on the shortcut, choose Properties. Click Change Icon… and pick an appropriate icon from shell32.dll.

Replacing the "Empty Recycle Bin" context menu

To make the Empty Recycle Bin command in the Recycle Bin run the above command, use these steps:

(You may use the file emptybin.reg from the Registry Fix section below to automate the following task.)

Side-effects of this tweak: The Empty Recycle Bin option will not work from the Tasks pane, after applying this tweak. Also, the Empty Recycle Bin command in the context menu will be always enabled even though there are no files in the Recycle Bin.

1. Launch Regedit.exe and navigate to the following key:

2. Create a new subkey named Shell

3. Select the Shell key, and create a subkey named emptybin

4. Similarly, create a subkey named command, under the emptybin key.

5. Select the following key:

6. Double-click (default) and set its data to:

7. Navigate to the following key:

8. Under the ContextMenuHandlers key, right-click {645FF040-5081-101B-9F08-00AA002F954E} and choose Delete

9. Exit the Registry Editor.

Note: Step 8 is required to hide the the default Empty Recycle Bin command in the context menu, so that you don’t end up with duplicate entries.

Registry Fix

Download emptybin.zip and save to Desktop. Unzip the archive and extract the files to a folder. Double-click emptybin.reg to run it.

Undo Information

Run the file emptybin-undo.reg to reverse the changes.

RELATED TIP

How to hide the "Delete" command from Recycle Bin context menu in Windows Vista

Copyright © 2008 Ramesh Srinivasan. All rights reserved.

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