Creates and configures windows recycle bins on virtual and network drives.

Is is based on the discussion in the Microsoft Forum

It is a standalone and portable applications and can be used without installing it. The minimal requirements are .NET 4.5 and Windows 7 or better.

• https://github.com/thsmi/recycler/releases or https://github.com/thsmi/recycler/releases/download/1.0/Recycler.exe

If you like this project consider donating:

• via Paypal

So this tool is based upon a well known hack. It is unlikely, but it may break with any windows update.

The following limitations are inherrent to windows and can not be changed:

• Each drive and user has his own separate recycle bin.
• Deleted files are not moved across drives, data always stays on the same drive.
• You need adminstrator right to activate and deactivate a recycle bin.
• The configuration is persistent and system wide. In order to activate or deactivate a recycle bin you have to reboot. The changes are only applied at startup.

Windows defines two types of recycle bins, one for volumes (partitions on harddrives) and one for knownfolder (any valid path).

Both have a slightly differnt behaviour.

Recycle bins for volumes are identified by their per volume id. Typically they are partitons on a harddrive. The volume id is unique to a computer and created at the time when the device was discovered for the first time. This id never changes and may be bound to a path or driveletter.

Virtual and network drives are no volumes, they can not have a volume id.

Windows activates by default a recycle bin for new volumes.

Known folders are somehow magical and confusing. Any valid path can be defined to be a known folder. Whenever windows stumbles upon such a folder it applies some magic. They can be used to activate a recycle bin on a network drive or virtural drive.

But be warned the known folder configuration is per computer applies to all users and it is persistent.

So consider the following example: You mounted a directory to the virtual s:\ drive . Then activate the recycle bin for the virtual s:\ drive . After some time you unmount the virtual s:\ drive and map a network share to the virtual s:\ drive.

You will endup having a recycle bin on the s:\ drive. Because the configuration is persistent to the s:\ path.

Please report bugs via the issue tracker or send an email to schmid-thomas at gmx.net .

The extension is free and open source software, it is made available to you under the terms of the MIT License.