May 27
How about that for a Saturday morning. Although it was a very tough decision, I decided to go with the “No” option.
The recycle bin icon showed up as if there was some content in the recycle bin, but when I opened it there was nothing inside. Trying to empty the bin resulted in this confirm box. Various posts on forums, found via Google, suggested all different things (reboot, safe mode, show hidden files, …). The error disappeared when I right clicked the recycle bin and called up its properties. For some mysterious reason, the error was gone and the icon returned to its normal “empty” state.
Oh man, this is a dear diary moment !
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Christophe Herreman is a software developer living in Belgium. He's working on high-end Flex and AIR solutions at
May 27th, 2006 at 12:12 pm
That happens to me a LOT. I empty the bin, then later the icon shows stuff in there. I empty it, and it says “do you want to delete Windows”.. totally bizarre. you’re not the only one
May 27th, 2006 at 12:59 pm
I wonder what would’ve happened if you clicked yes
May 27th, 2006 at 1:11 pm
Serge, I propose you try and let me know
No, you should get an error that Windows is currently being used… really ?
May 27th, 2006 at 7:34 pm
This is a well known spyware. Try to check your computer.
May 30th, 2006 at 9:49 pm
I’m getting the same thing. Does anybody have any idea how to fix this?
I’ve run several virus scans and found nothing that would cause this. I’m being told by tech support that I have to wipe out my hard drive to correct this problem. Help!
June 6th, 2006 at 10:08 am
Well, ive run SPYBOT, MS anti spy beta, mcafee (Allsorts) Ad-aware oh and aol (dunno why) and its still there….anyone had any luck with this thing?
June 11th, 2006 at 8:14 am
well this just happened to me. i clicked to empty the trash before my computer had a chance to add the item i sent to the trash. i know it has nothing to do with spyware or virus as i am very good at keeping my computers clean. due to how it hapened to me, im guessing it’s just a glitch in windows which occurs when u click to empty but the computer doesn’t see anything there to delete. after all your not meant to see “empty recycle bin” if nothing is there.
July 11th, 2006 at 9:49 am
I have the same funny problem and after a dosen times i decided to say “Yes” and to format my NTFS partition then with some more serious OS.. but nothing happened - the WINDOWS directory is read-only by default ;))) Fuck off Bill Gates
July 13th, 2006 at 2:10 pm
Yeah just click yes nothing happens. THe recycle bin goes back to normal. Its Windows so its supposed to try to delete itself. Nothing like this happens on my Ubuntu Linux install (dual-boot).
July 18th, 2006 at 10:37 am
I have the same problem, but when i click yes, it says “Dc19: Access Denied” i googled it and got nothing plz help!!
July 29th, 2006 at 3:08 pm
I have just developed this problem with my computer, but only since I have been handling extremely large amounts of huge files that needed deleting, almost all of them video files since i am moving vhs home movies to dvd, a large amount is trashed, i wonder if this has anything to do with it?
August 5th, 2006 at 2:13 am
barspeed, it’s the same issue with me. I was running out of space and decided to delete huge amounts of videos and music and other programs that I didn’t need, and right after that, I got the problem. So it might be related.
August 6th, 2006 at 3:12 pm
Lol i have this problem too!! What happens is, i delete some files to the recycle bin right, and then i empty my recycle bin. I get this error: Cannot delete Dd130: Access denied
So im like “what?? I didnt delete any Dd130″. I go into the recycle bin and its empty but the icon shows that its got something in it. I try to empty it and it says delete WINDOWS.
I press no, i aint pressin yes. Anyways, its ok after reset.
August 8th, 2006 at 6:50 pm
Just to easy those fears of other newbies like myself, I had this occur after starting windows for the first time after my first dual boot install. After reading this, I mustered up the courage to say YES and waaaala…nothing. The icon just returned to its empty ’state’
Hurray for dual boot
August 13th, 2006 at 8:06 am
It turns out that a corrupt file has a at one point been in the recycle bin or the recycle bin related files themselves are corrupt; not sure which. Either way a disk check fixing errors on next reboot always works for me.
September 20th, 2006 at 3:49 am
I just had that happen to me. First time ever on this XP Pro system. Scary….
But I tried deleting another file and when I opened the bin and emptied it I got the query ‘Do you want to delete these two files’. Having several levels of backup I clicked yes and now no problem.
October 6th, 2006 at 9:56 pm
try disconnecting any removable drives (such as mp3 players). worked for me.
October 7th, 2006 at 6:07 pm
hello. i fix it opening the taskmanager CRL + ALT + Supr and in the process section look for Explorer.exe process select it and click on “finish process” the desktop and icons must dissapear then goto file menu in the taskmanager and click on new task then write “explorer.exe” without quotation marks and acept the desktop must appear again and the recycle bin icon is the correct now , and the vacate recyclebin option must be disabled now. sorry, if you don’t understand well some words i’m learning english well, i hope that this can help you bye.
November 16th, 2006 at 4:57 am
Run CrapCleaner and then search for mistake. Everything went alright after this perform.
December 19th, 2006 at 5:33 am
WHY DOES EVERYONE’S WINDOWS LOOK LIKE THAT!?!?!?!? I WANT IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!
January 24th, 2007 at 2:16 pm
I just had that same message ” are you sure…..” I love to live dangerously so I answered yes and nothing happened. I reboot my computer just to be sure and my PC opened as usual.
January 25th, 2007 at 12:33 pm
Today when I’ve started windows, first it said some files are corrupt yagga yagga…
Later I’ve found those “corrupt” files in skype folder, I’ve uninstalled skype and it was gone. but later, when i saw recycle bin wasn’t empty i click “empty ~~” then it said, Are you sure you want to deleted “Windows”? i clicked Yes/No tried evrything said above, but nothing did work.. maybe someone could help?
February 7th, 2007 at 6:42 am
OK like Wizy Said I have tried each and every fix in this forum and still I get a full RB Icon and the message “are you sure…” I am stumped!
February 7th, 2007 at 11:49 am
I had the same problem, but I ran spyware docotor and it found 7 infections, then ran norton 2007 security suite, then installed CClean
February 7th, 2007 at 11:53 am
Hey it cut me off. anyway I ran CClean then checked issues with cclean,Rebooted. tried to empty again and it asked “do you want to remove all remaining files” I clicked yes thinking it wouldn’t let me, it did. now everything works fine. . . . .so far. I wonder what was in the RB??? hope it wasn’t anything important.
Hope this helps someone
March 10th, 2007 at 1:40 pm
Heh, this problem is just a standard XP glitch. I think its XP, cause I never saw it before (and I even used Windows ME once upon a time). I got it shortly after I first installed XP, and pretty regularly since. Its pretty easy for me to replicate, just delete large amounts of large files and then empty the recylce bin, while the system is heavily used. Seems to be a standard thing for me, lol. I figure the glitch comes when the bin gets emptied, but the registry flag isn’t changed (probably cause the processor was heavily used at the time, and the process got lost)- so it still acts as if its full. While funny, it probably only displays that message because it doesn’t have anything better to display. Usually it sorts itself out - the message is gone by the time I delete another file, or definately after a system restart. Basically anything that causes the registry to refresh itself.
March 16th, 2007 at 2:23 am
This happened to me after deleteing a large amount of video files, at first i was thinking virus (spyware). Now i am not so sure. I will post back if i find a solution.
March 20th, 2007 at 1:03 am
I just installed a new antivirus program on this 3 month old build and got the same thing! Do you want to delete “Windows”
LOL
I run spyware protection (spybot and adaware) and try very hard to keep this system clean.
Must be some damn MS glitch, so as above, fuck off Bill Gates!!!
April 7th, 2007 at 11:56 pm
i just deleted a some video files and had the same issue. i’m running spybot.
June 5th, 2007 at 6:00 am
I had this problem.I think the program I used search and destroy. It helped with some other problems also. I found it from a forum somewhere when I typed in my problem Good luck
July 7th, 2007 at 4:58 am
Run Chkdsk on the drive that has Windows installed
and also run Chkdsk on the drive that you previously deleted those large files. The cause is because of a mixed up file handle residing int he registry and some mixed up index files on the Drives. Chkdsk solved it for me.
August 17th, 2007 at 9:02 am
just open your task Manager and then end iexplorer process in the process lane. the issue with you mentioned will work well.
August 18th, 2007 at 9:08 pm
That happens to me often too. I deleted a 50mb avi file and then I empty the recycle bin and the… the file’s gone but the icon still shows as if it has somethin
August 18th, 2007 at 9:12 pm
That happens to me often too. I deleted a 50mb avi file and then I empty the recycle bin and the… the file’s gone but the icon still shows as if it has something inside. I checked and doesnt have anything inside. Then I try to “empty the recycle bin” and it says you want to delete WINDOWS. say what?! click yes and error. I’ll say that this is a glitch. NO VIRUS, NO SPYWARE, NO NOTHING PEOPLE!!!! I run XP Pro SP2 in a Intel III (128mb) (Old PC which I dont use btw). This is strange and Bill gay… I mean Bill Gates need to fix this. Thanks to you for reading all this s***….
September 5th, 2007 at 4:55 pm
I deleted a file on the d: drive (a drive i use for media storage) and since then it will not let me empty the recycle bin. It asks if I want to delete Windows. I click yes and get:
I get the error “access denied to folder Dd: make sure it is not in use or write protected.”
so i go into the d:/recycler folder and one of the sub fodlers and sure enough there is a Dd: folder i cannot delete!
i have run spybot and ad aware and antivirus, nothing. i have run chkdsk, defgrag and rebooted a million times.
but i cant get around this glitch!
September 9th, 2007 at 8:46 pm
This happens usually because you are doing to much in one go !
Even more so if you have mp3 players or anything with external memory connected.
Remove these devices and turn of any software (itunes, activesync etc)
This should stop it… If it doesn’t simply reboot.
This is NOT a harmful problem, though you should fix it when it happens. Emptying it wont do much except maybe mix some files up !
September 9th, 2007 at 10:19 pm
So I ran CCleaner, deleted a bunch of large video files AND emptied the recycle bin after getting this error. I restarted and now…nothing. “NTDETECT NOT FOUND”
a little help please?
November 6th, 2007 at 9:45 am
jus close all your programs and any other windows open. Then create a blank file in notepad for example, and then delete it. Now go and empty the recycle bin and it should only delete that file, and then be normal again.
January 10th, 2008 at 2:34 pm
Had the same today (XP Pro SP2 NTFS) after a fresh system start. Recycle Bin showing contents, opening it gave an empty window plus the options to empty the bin or to restore all the items.
Looking with a old-mannered file manager tool (Turbo Navigator) I discovered under ‘C:\Recycler’ two sub-folders named ‘S-1-51-xxxxx’ (the code used internally by Windows to store system objects).
In both folders I found ‘desktop.ini’ and ‘INFO2′ but in one (I checked the Registry and saw it was corresponding to my full login account) I also found an empty sub-folder called ‘DC1′. Removing this folder solved the issue.
Did not have to run any other tool.
CHKDSK /F also did report problems.
January 10th, 2008 at 2:35 pm
Corrigendum: CHKDSK /F did *NOT* report problems.
January 11th, 2008 at 11:16 am
I’ve seen this many times it happens to me all the time. This is what I do. I make a new folder on my desktop and I move that folder to the recycle bin. I double click on the recycle bin (note: don’t empty) click on the folder and delete the folder. The full recycle bin to empty recycle bin. If this doesn’t work then you might have a problem with your hkey entires. I like what one person said “theres a little person playing with your computer”.
January 20th, 2008 at 9:14 pm
check #18 it works very well for me it fixed the problem…. tried everythings else before… So i tell you #18
April 6th, 2008 at 4:54 pm
Thank you R your solution worked for me
# R Says:
November 6th, 2007 at 9:45 am
just close all your programs and any other windows open. Then create a blank file in notepad for example, and then delete it. Now go and empty the recycle bin and it should only delete that file, and then be normal again.