With the sort of inquisitive probing normally associated with young children, let’s ask two of the big questions about Windows: 'Why is it the Eecycle Bin doesn’t empty itself?' and 'What is the difference between a folder and a briefcase?'
Why is it the Recycle Bin doesn’t empty itself?
The answer to this first question is that destiny dictates the document we bin will either be the wrong one, or the very file we need desperately two weeks later. Nowadays, though, the delete button isn’t necessarily the final sanction it once was. Most of the well known utility suites include an undelete tool to come to the rescue…which is probably just as well when some Windows users regard the Recycle Bin as temporary storage space. For those of you who don’t, here’s how to ice your unwanted files with varying degrees of prejudice.
Minimum prejudice
To switch off those annoying “are you really, really sure” deletion confirmation messages, right-click your Recycle Bin. Click Properties and uncheck the ‘Display delete confirmation dialog’ box.
Maximum prejudice
To ‘slot’ all your unwanted files quickly and painlessly, right click the Recycle Bin. Click Properties and check the ‘Do not move files to the Recycle Bin’ box.
For a more selective culling policy, simply hold down the Shift key and drag items to the Recycle Bin to delete them permanently. This is a less scattergun approach and doesn’t require changes to Properties.
Remote prejudice
If both these options sound like hard work, you could take out a contract, so to speak, on the documents you wish to discard by running the Windows Disk Cleanup system tool as a Scheduled Task. Go Start/Control Panel/Scheduled Tasks and then click on the Add Scheduled Tasks icon. The Scheduled Tasks wizard will then walk you through the set up process. Select the frequency and time, and the computer will do the dirty work for you.
What is the difference between a folder and a briefcase?
This is a bit of a trick question. A briefcase is a folder that is shared so you can synchronize the contents between a desktop machine and a laptop. You can use either a direct cable connection between the devices or removable storage media like a rewritable CD.
