Number 255 - August 2004

Bypassing The Recycle Bin
from Fred Langa Column, May 31, 2004
Q:   "This is probably a dumb question, but how do you keep Windows XP from making a copy of every file you attempt to delete? And on some occasions, it will make a second copy when you attempt to delete the copy. I must have missed something somewhere.... --William Burney" A:   "Anytime you don't want the Recycle Bin to temporarily store a file for possible later recovery, just press and hold the left shift key when you make the deletion. (The NUM Lock must be off for this to work.)1 Then, the file gets deleted with no Recycle Bin copy made. You get a visual confirmation of this in the deletion dialog box: the animation shows the files disappearing, instead of being deposited in the recycle bin.	"There are other ways to do this, via a reg tweak, or with a permanent setting (see http://langa.com/u/4w.htm), but for occasional use, the shift-key method is the simplest, fastest way.    "Note that this non-Recycle Bin deletion is not a secure deletion--the file still can be recovered from the hard drive using file-recovery tools. (www.google.com/search?q=file+recovery)2 But this does make it at least a little harder to call up a "deleted" file; and it also prevents your Recycle Bin from filling up with garbage you know you'll never want to try to recover."    1 According to a later Fred langa column NUM Lock Off is required only on older versions of Windows    2 No space between search and ?, all one continuous string.
Number 255 - August 2004