Use Recycle Bin for network drive (Windows Vista/ 7 / 8)

If you’re working on a network drive and you accidentally delete some files – you’ll realize that this file is not going to the Recycle Bin. NO EASY WAY to recover it!

OMG !

Yeah it happened, and to prevent this disaster from happening to you, please read this guide (courtesy of Russel Riley):

Method 1:
1. Map a network drive to the network share you want to use. Make sure that the drive is re-connected on logon. If you don't know how to do this, search Google.
2. Browse to C:\users\<user name>.
3. Right-click on one of the folders in this location (I chose saved games) and click properties.
4. Select the Location tab.
5. Click Move, browse to to root of the drive you mapped in step 1, and click Select Folder.
6. Click Ok and click yes in the dialogue box that appears.
7. Repeat these same steps for all users on the computer.

Method 2 : the guide is here: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/windows/en-US/a349801f-398f-4139-8e8b-b0a92f599e2b/enable-recycle-bin-on-mapped-network-drives?forum=w8itpronetworking . In summary:

Create a *.reg file with this content:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FolderDescriptions\{9147E464-33A6-48E2-A3C9-361EFD417DEF}]
"RelativePath"="X:\\"
"Category"=dword:00000004
"Name"="XDrive"

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\BitBucket\KnownFolder\{9147E464-33A6-48E2-A3C9-361EFD417DEF}]
"MaxCapacity"=dword:0000c7eb
"NukeOnDelete"=dword:00000000

A few things of note:

• The GUID in the above .reg file {9147E464-33A6-48E2-A3C9-361EFD417DEF} came from this PowerShell command: "{"+[guid]::NewGUID().ToString().ToUpper()+"}"
  
• Each "known folder"/Recycle Bin combination requires a unique GUID. If you don't want to use PowerShell to generate a GUID, you can use an online GUID generator.
  
• I don't know what the "Category" value does, but the key I copied had it set to 4, and that works, so I didn't test any other values.
  
• The "Name" value is required, but is not the name that will be shown if you right-click on the Recycle Bin and select properties. (At least not in my environment.) In my environment, the name that is shown is the name of the network drive.
  
• Making this change adds a "Location" tab to the properties page of your mapped network drives. I suspect this could be removed by changing the "Category" value, but didn't bother to find out.
  
• I only tested with mapped network drives. I suspect this would work with UNC paths as well, but I didn't bother testing.

Source:

• http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/windows/en-US/a349801f-398f-4139-8e8b-b0a92f599e2b/enable-recycle-bin-on-mapped-network-drives?forum=w8itpronetworking


• http://forums.mydigitallife.info/threads/16974-Tip-Network-Recycle-bin