how do I restore recycle bin's default settings? Windows 7 Professional

Hi LemP

I have found what I believe to be the reason for the padlocked icon. First let me clear up an error on my part.

The Windows 7 pc is part of my private network. It has several drives, internal and external. With exception of one external drive, all drives have more or less the same attributes as described by you. That is to say, the main folder icon is $Recycle.Bin with a locked subfolder Recycle Bin and the Security options are more or less the same groups.

On the external disc, it is $Recycle.Bin that is locked. Not the subfolder. In addition, $Recycle.Bin is shared. Clearly this should not be the case and is probably a left-over from some previous use of the drive and the reason for the padlock.

The sharing tab on the Properties dialogue box has designated the folder as shared.

I cannot think of any reason for unsharing the folder as any settings are confined to itself and sub folders but not others.

Can you think of any reason why I should not do this, or any precaustions to take before proceeding further?

Iain

Thank you again LemP for taking the time to provide a very detailed and useful answer.

Interestingly, what you describe is almost exactly what I have, with a couple of odd exceptions. Rather than mention these at the moment, I'm going to take some time to see if these exceptions may have a bearing on why the Recycle bin operates as described below.

The reason for this post is that my attention was recently drawn to these attributes of my recycle bin when reviewing how secure my home network was. What I descovered was that although I have complete access any of the folders on my Windows 7 pc, e.g. ibrary folders etc., from my workhorse Windows 10 laptoplap but not the Recycle bin.

If I were to sync a folder on the pc with one on the laptop, any file deleted on the laptop is also deleted from the pc. The deleted file appears in the laptop's recycle bin but NOT on the pc's recycle bin. I was blissfully unaware of this and it occurs whther I manually delete a file using File Explorer or an application.

I'm going to take a little time before I follow up on this to see if I can narrow down why or when these exceptions might have been amended but I'll keep this discussion thread live for now.

Best

Iain

I haven't studied the file structure of Windows system files in detail, but I can tell you what I observe on a Windows 7 system.

In the root directory, there is a folder named $Recycle.Bin. For example, C:$Recycle.Bin

On my Windows 7 system, that folder has both System and Hidden attributes. It does not show a lock icon. The Security tab on the folder's Properties sheet shows SYSTEM, Administrators, and Users as entities that have some sort of permission for this folder. The presence of Users in this list (even though the Users group members only have "Special Permissions" checked) is why there is no lock icon.

Inside the $Recycle.Bin folder, Windows Explorer shows a folder named Recycle Bin and one or more folders with long security descriptor names (e.g., S-1-5-21-1319814502-564659434-281949911-1004).

The folder named Recycle Bin does have a lock icon. Interestingly enough, it has no Security tab on its Properties sheet. Looking a bit more deeply into this, I discovered that this is one of the instances in which Windows Explorer replaces the actual folder name with a "friendly" name. This folder also has a "recycle bin" icon rather than the standard windows folder icon.

The folder's actual name is another long security descriptor (ending in -1000). The users and groups with permissions for this folder are SYSTEM, Administrators, and the currently logged-in user. So that's why it has a lock icon (i.e., it's not shared with other users). The owner of the directory is shown as "Administrators" not SYSTEM.

Thank you LemP.

I know what the lock icon signifies and have already looked at the settings suggested by the howtogeek.

The problem is that the folder is not a normal library folder that may or may not be a shared folder depending on those settings. I'm dealing with the Recycle bin which is usually off limits to normal users, however I have noticed that the user groups are pretty much the same on my pc as in th example and have the same permissions.

You are correct that this problem is not affecting my user/admin rights. The problem is that the folder is shown with a locked padlock. From memory this is not the normal status of this particular folder and I haven't been able to find out what the folder's default status should be.

Would it not be the case that the recycle bin is considered to be a SYSTEM resource? i.e. the recycle bin folder owner should be SYSTEM?

Iain

The lock icon indicates that the folder isn't being shared with another user. Given that you're the only user, that wouldn't seem to be a problem.

Some more information here: https://www.howtogeek.com/17117/remove-the-lock-icon-from-a-folder-in-windows-7/