Dramen and myself had a chat about the Recycle Bin the other night, and decided to do a little article together on how to make it a bit more personal. First one up is for those users that like to keep their icons on their desktop, and the second tip is for those who prefer to hide their desktop icons. Choose your weapon and have some fun!




Rename The Recycle Bin


The Recycle Bin, how about a different name for this necessary evil? This is a very easy tweak, if you follow along, we're going to have a little fun and learn to change the Recycle Bin's name by way of a registry 'hack'. If you are a beginner into the murky world of the registry, this is an ideal way of getting your feet wet. Here's a couple of ideas of what you could do with the Bin to make it a little more personal if you keep your RB on your desktop.



Let's get started, click Start, Run, and type regedit into the the box presented



Click OK and you should now be in the registry with your screen similar to this



Now we need to drill down to the registry key that we need to modify, by clicking the + sign we will find our way to the needed entry. Follow along, just take your time if you haven't done this before and expand the following keys in the left hand pane:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER
SOFTWARE
MICROSOFT
WINDOWS
CURRENTVERSION
EXPLORER
CLSID

There should be several entries below the CLSID key, the one we're looking for is {645FF040-5081-101B-9F08-00AA002F954E} highlighted in the pic below



Now for a little precaution if you're nervous about editing the registry, we're going to back-up that particular key by right clicking on the key, then left clicking the Export option



Now you will have to give your exported key a name and a place to store it. As the picture indicates, I called mine recycle bin and am going to store it on the desktop. In the 'Save as type:' box, make sure "reg" is selected. I usually export to the desktop so the key is easy to find if I don't like the results of various tweaks I've applied on my system.



When everything looks good to you, click OK and the saved key is now safe on your desktop and should look something like this



Back in the registry editor, now that our key is highlighted, we need to double click the default value in the right hand pane



This presents us with an Edit String box



Type a new name in the 'Value Data' field, and click OK when you're satisfied. Now minimize the editor, right-click an empty spot on the desktop and left click Refresh to see the results of your handiwork!

If you're satisfied with everything, you can now delete the backup of the exported key. If you want to return your system to the default 'Recycle Bin', just double click the saved file on your desktop, then Yes & OK and you're back where you started before our little adventure.

Happy tweaking, now check out Dramens article which follows, Alakazam




How to create a Quick Launch Recycle Bin, rename it and Show/Hide Desktop Icons.


Some of us like a clean desktop without icons, but miss having the Recycle Bin handy. This tweak will illustrate how to create the Recycle Bin on the Taskbar and rename it to whatever you desire. All this can be accomplished without the need to mess with the dreaded "Registry".

The beauty of this trick, is that Windows treats the Toolbar Recycle Bin just as it does the "real" Recycle Bin, because it will refresh the bin with the empty/full icons so you will know when your bin needs to be emptied. And if you use themes that contain their own icons for the recycle bin, Windows will update those as well. Usage of the Recycle Bin remains the same as if it were on the Desktop.

First we learn how to show/hide desktop icons.


You just right click anywhere on the decktop background and move your mouse to "Arrange Icons By", which will then show a sub-menu and you left click to remove the check mark in front of "Show Desktop Icons". To show them again, just repeat the steps and put the check mark back in front of "Show Desktop Icons".



Now we can go on to create the Quick Launch Recycle Bin.


Make sure you have enabled Quick Launch beforehand. If you haven't done so, then do this now by right clicking on the Taskbar and selecting "Toolbars" then left click on "Quick Launch".



Creating a shortcut to the Recycle Bin on the Desktop is easy, don't worry, it's not staying there for long. To create the shortcut, right click on the Recycle Bin Icon thats on your desktop and the select "Create Shortcut".



Your desktop will now show the regular Recycle Bin and the new shortcut.



Now just drag and drop the new shortcut to the Quick Launch Toolbar. Do this by left clicking and holding down the button on the shortcut you just created and "drop" it on the Quick Launch Toolbar.



If you want to rename the Toolbar Recycle bin just left click on the Toolbar Icon and select rename.



Now just re-hide the "real" Recycle Bin by repeating the step above concerning Show/Hide desktop icons.

That's it, were all done! Now you can enjoy a clutter free desktop and have one click access to your Recycle Bin!

Enjoy! Dramen