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Send the Recycle Bin to your taskbar in Windows 7

November 30th, 2009 by Ken

Windows 7 is fast becoming Microsoft’s most popular release of their seminal operating system. More reliable than previous versions, with faster performance and considerably greater stability, this is an operating system that has returned Microsoft to an enviable position that they were displaced from because of problems encountered when using the two most recent installments – XP and Vista.

With Windows 7 being a new version of the operating system, despite having many familiar holdovers from past installments, there are several new options that add ease and functionality which previously didn’t exist.

One of those is the ability to send the Recycle Bin to your taskbar.

For those of you handling multiple operations on your PC, accessing the Recycle Bin (which is very useful for those of you who’re mindful of that data which you absolutely no longer need) can become a tedious routine. Windows 7 offers a fast way to permanently affix it to your taskbar, making it readily available for those times it’s needed.

To place the Recycle Bin in your taskbar, the following short steps are required:

You’ll want to create a shortcut on your desktop. It’ll ask you for the location of your shortcut, for which you’ll enter the following in the field:

explorer.exe shell:RecycleBinFolder

To proceed, click Next.

You’ll then be asked to name it. Some might call it “Recycle Bin,” while others may want to be creative; either way, it’ll still have the functions of your recycle bin.

Once that’s finished, you’ll need to modify the look of the icon so that it reflects the trash bin we normally associate with this function.

Right-click on the icon and select “properties.”

Click on “Change Icon.”

In field that asks where you’d like to look for the icon, type:

%SystemRoot%\system32\imageres.dll

The Recycle Bin icon will appear in the new assortment of available icons.

Once you’ve applied that, click on OK to exit the Recycle Bin properties screen. As you’ll see, the Recycle Bin now looks like that familiar container. To send it to your task bar, you can either drag it there or right-click on the icon and choose “Pin to Taskbar.”

And, That’s it. This is nice way of bypassing steps that eventually weigh down on those involved with routine tasks. Instead of having to open the Recycle Bin each time you use it, it’s sitting right in your task bar, awaiting whatever trash you see fit to dispose of.

Related posts:

1. Send Firefox to the System Tray
2. Specify which programs users can run in Windows 7
3. Windows 7 AppLocker allows you to limit access to applications on your computer.
4. Another cool tool for your Windows right-click menu
5. With Windows 7, you can prevent users from shutting down or restarting their computer.

Tags: Windows 7

3 Responses to “Send the Recycle Bin to your taskbar in Windows 7”

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   November 30, 2009 at 7:29 pm

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   December 1, 2009 at 10:31 pm

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