Sams Teach Yourself Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional in 10 Minutes

By Dorothy Burke and Jane Calabria

• Table of Contents
  • Copyright
  • Tell Us What You Think!
  • About the Authors
  • Introduction
  • Conventions Used in This Book
  • Lesson 1. Navigating Windows 2000 Professional
  • Lesson 2. Working with a Window
  • Lesson 3. Using Menus
  • Lesson 4. Using Windows 2000 Professional Help
  • Lesson 5. Using Dialog Boxes
  • Lesson 6. Working with Multiple Windows and Applications
  • Lesson 7. Copying, Moving, and Linking Between Windows and Applications
  • Lesson 8. Using My Computer
  • Lesson 9. Managing Files with My Computer
  • Lesson 10. Using WordPad
  • Lesson 11. Understanding File Properties and the Recycle Bin
    • Filenames
    • File Size
    • File Creation Date and Time
    • File Attributes
    • Viewing Properties
    • Managing the Recycle Bin
    • Opening the Recycle Bin
    • Emptying the Recycle Bin
    • Restoring Files
    • Recycle Bin Properties
  • Lesson 12. Printing
  • Lesson 13. Using My Network Places
  • Lesson 14. Using the Control Panel
  • Lesson 15. Using Outlook Express Mail
  • Lesson 16. Sharing Workstations and Setting Passwords
  • Lesson 17. Using Internet Explorer 5
  • Lesson 18. Web Site and Document Searching
  • Lesson 19. Troubleshooting, Restarting, and Disaster Planning
  • Lesson 20. Customizing the Windows 2000 Environment

Recycle Bin Properties

To customize your Recycle Bin and how files are deleted on your system, you need to open the Recycle Bin Properties box (see Figure 11.9).

Figure 11.9 The Recycle Bin Properties box.

To open the Recycle Bin Properties box, right-click the Recycle Bin icon and choose Properties from the pop-up menu.

You can choose to make your Recycle Bin settings work for all the drives on your computer by selecting Use One Setting For All Drives. Otherwise, select Configure Drives Independently. If you choose the latter, you have to click each of the other tabs in the Properties box that bear the names of your drives and make the settings on each one.

There are three properties to set for the Recycle Bin:

• Configure drives independently: Click to use separate settings for each drive on your system.
• Use one setting for all drives: Click to have the settings on the current tab apply to all your drives.
• Do not move files to the Recycle Bin. Remove files immediately when deleted: If you check this option, your deleted files will not be stored in the Recycle Bin but will disappear from the drive. This means that you won't be able to restore the files. However, if you're tight on disk space, you may want to do this rather than buying a second or larger disk drive.
• Maximum size of Recycle Bin (percentage of each drive): Use the slide indicator to set the maximum size to which the Recycle Bin can grow. Making it smaller will conserve disk space.
• Display delete confirmation dialog box: Check this to be asked if you really want to delete the files every time you do a deletion. If you're tired of seeing the dialog box and having to click Yes every time you want to delete files, remove the check mark from this option. If you enable this option, just be sure in the future that you really want to delete the files because you'll no longer be getting a warning.

Once you've selected your options in the Property box, click OK.

In this lesson, you learned the various properties of a file: size, date and time, and attributes. You learned how to find the properties of a selected file and how to change the attributes. You also learned what the Recycle Bin is and how to use it to remove and restore files to your drives. In the next lesson, you learn about printing in Windows 2000.

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