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What is Recycler?


redmaledeer

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(Windows XP Home SP1, IE 6) What is the Recycler folder (C\RECYCLER)? Mine has seven sub-folders in it, the earliest of which is almost two years old. Only the latest has any appreciable content, the previous six being almost empty. The tooltip for all six says "Contains the files and folders that you have deleted." Can I delete the earliest six? Can I delete the latest one, or is that just the Recycle Bin under another name, so that I would be deleting the Recycle Bin or all its contents? Or is the latest one a backup of the Recycle Bin -- but why on earth would one want to back up the Recycle Bin anyway?

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(Windows XP Home SP1, IE 6) What is the Recycler folder (C\RECYCLER)? Mine has seven sub-folders in it, the earliest of which is almost two years old. Only the latest has any appreciable content, the previous six being almost empty. The tooltip for all six says "Contains the files and folders that you have deleted." Can I delete the earliest six? Can I delete the latest one, or is that just the Recycle Bin under another name, so that I would be deleting the Recycle Bin or all its contents? Or is the latest one a backup of the Recycle Bin -- but why on earth would one want to back up the Recycle Bin anyway?
The Recycle Bin and Folder are two different things. The former contains all the files you've deleted from hard drive until the user empties the bin. But you know that already I think. The Recycle Folder only appears on NTFS drives/partitions and contains a Recycle bin for every user who has logged on your computer.
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Tushman nailed ithttp://support.microsoft.com/kb/171694/EN-US/

When you delete a file in Windows NT Explorer or My Computer, the file is stored in the Recycle Bin. The file remains in the Recycle Bin until you empty the Recycle Bin or restore the file.The Recycler folder is used only on NTFS partitions. The Recycler folder contains a Recycle Bin for each user that logs on to the computer, sorted by their security identifier (SID).
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Tushman nailed it
Yes, and thanks. I think I have cleared out the unnecessary sub-folders safely. My profusion of sub-folders came from earlier User Accounts which have since been cancelled.
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