Solution: Recycle Bin Icon on Desktop Doesn’t Refresh Automatically in Windows Vista

In this topic I'm going to tell solution of another common problem in Windows Vista. Sometimes Recycle Bin icon on Desktop doesn't refresh automatically, i.e. if its showing "Full Recycle Bin" icon, it'll not change even if you empty the Recycle bin. It'll change to Empty icon, once you Refresh the Desktop.

It happens when you try to change Recycle Bin icon using Desktop Properties and then you revert back the icon to default using "Restore Default" button. Windows changes the icon to default but the problem of icon not refreshing automatically starts occurring. Its a bug in Windows Vista, which I described recently in this article.

The solution of this problem is manually change both FULL and EMPTY Recycle Bin icons to default instead of using "Restore Default" button. So following are the steps to fix this problem:

1. Right-click on Desktop and select "Personalize". It'll open Personalization window. Now click on "Change desktop icons" link in left-side pane. It'll open "Desktop Icon Settings" window. You can also open it directly by using "control desk.cpl,,0" or "control desk.cpl,,@web" commands (without quotes).

2. Now select "Recycle Bin (full)" icon from the icons list and click on "Change Icon" button:

3. It'll open "Change Icon" window. Although it'll automatically select the correct default "Full Recycle Bin" icon, click on it to re-select it and then click on OK button:

4. Now do the same for "Recycle Bin (empty)" icon. Select it and click on "Change Icon" button:

5. Select the default "Empty Recycle Bin" icon in "Change Icon" window and click on OK button:

6. That's it. Now click on "Apply" button and your problem will be solved.

Thanks to "piellepi" for sharing this solution.

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This article was posted in Troubleshooting, Windows Vista.

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25 Comments

Ingnition

Wow

That is very cool. i was having the same problem but now i solved. thanx a million
VG

^^ Welcome.
Jeet Chowdhury

well in vista beta recycle bin full medium or sub medium as file in list. suppose i have 100 mb recycle space set. if 25 mb file in recycle bin it full only quarter of icon. but in rtm release it like xp. any way to back the beta recycle bin style?
VG

^^ Yep. That was really cool in Beta but there is no way to bring it back in RTM.
Jeet Chowdhury

why ms not include it in rtm?

btw which system file used for recycle bin? if explorer.exe content of it is it possible to changing some resources of this with beta to make it like beta recycle bin?
VG

^^ You can only have 2 icons for Recycle bin, empty and full.
Jeet Chowdhury

exchanging explorer.exe... is it work?
VG

^^ Nope. They changed the functionality. So its impossible now.
Jeet Chowdhury

its bad. i think they need to hotfix and enable it.....
Raj

OMG! Thanks alot man, works perfect with your step by step instructions