Solved Recycle Bin missing its properties and its icon is generic

[ineuw]

The Recycle Bin is not corrupt! I can open it and see if anything is in it and delete the contents individually, but "empty recycle bin" does not work and the properties are not available. Please see image.

I followed here several posts' instructions and nothing worked.
1. "sfc /scannow" reports that there are no problems.
2. Deleted all $Recycle Bin files, and rebooted.
3. Cleared the icon cache and rebuilt it.

What have I missed?

 

[ethel]

Hi ineuw, You could try to right click on the desktop, personalize, change desktop icons, and check the
box for recycle bin, if you have not already tried this, and the below tutorial by Brink will help you with
the properties of the recycle bin.


Recycle Bin Properties - Add or Remove - Windows 7 Help Forums

 

[ethel]

Hi again, This is another one to look at.



Desktop Icons - Change or Restore Default Icon - Windows 7 Help

 

[ineuw]

Ethel, thanks for the info, unfortunately it's not working for me. The Desktop Personalize icons for the Recycle Bin are correct . . . When I click to restore the defaults, the empty and full icons are displayed respectively. But the icons do not show up on the desktop and instead it displays an empty space. The issue is that the mechanism of the Recycle Bin is not functioning. The "Properties" label exists when the context menu is activated, but the Bin has no properties (please see the enclosed image) and the folder's "Empty the Recycling Bin" control is not functioning. Items that I delete appear in the folder, and to delete them I select all and click delete, as I would in any normal folder. On the other hand, the Restore function works (surprisingly).

 

[ethel]

Hi again, I have been looking around some more, and on the below link there is a solution by Brink for
add empty recycle bin to recycle bin context menu. I do not know about the blank desktop icon, will look
some more.



How to Add "Empty Recycle Bin" to Desktop Context Menu in Windows 7 and Windows 8

 

[ethel]

Hi again, I forgot to mention before that it would not hurt to try sfc /scannow a second time to see if this
helps.

 

[ineuw]

ethel, thanks again for our your efforts but please don't waste more of your time on this issue. I have done sfc /scannow for the third time and everything is OK. So is Chkdsk c: /f on boot. The Recycle Bin works with the context menu "Empty Recycle Bin", so the only thing is missing is the icon and the control button on the Explorer toolbar. I am sure that a solution will be found.

After the first posting, I restored the last Macrium mirror backup, (4 days old and there is no data on the C: drive.) The Recycle Bin icon and the Explorer control button worked as they should, but after a couple of days the same problem returned. I made no Windows update in that time.

 

[ethel]

Hi ineuw, Sorry that the icon issue is still there, and you are not wasting my time, I just wanted to try to
help, but I do not know what to do about the icon. Maybe someone else may have an answer to it.

 

[iko22]

Voila!!

https://www.online-tech-tips.com/wi...-a-missing-recycle-bin-icon-in-windows-vista/

The link explains the difference between the recycle bin full or empty icons.

 

[Brink]

Hello ineuw,

If you haven't already, you might see if either tutorial below may help fix the Recycle Bin.

Desktop Icons - Change or Restore Default Icon - Windows 7 Help Forums

Performance Maintenance - Recycle Bin | Vista Forums

 

[ineuw]

Thanks Brink for the links, but nothing I tried resolved the issue. The problem was corruption in the registry because of the Firefox 52.5.3 ESR crash. Restoring the last mirror helped temporarily, but with the reinstall of Firefox, the registry corrupted again and affected the Recycle bin. So, I ran JetClean repeatedly until suddenly everything was back to normal.

Caveat: Use a registry cleaner only if you have good mirror backups and keep no data on the boot drive. Macrium has saved my skin on numerous occasions.

 

[Brink]

Ah, yeah registry cleaners can do some serious damage.

 

[Magpeye]

I have the same issue

I don't mean to start this up again, but I am having the exact same issue and it happened after I uninstalled JetClean. I know that you fixed it, I am still just confused on how? If jetclean caused my issue. Thanks, Guys!

 

[Brink]

Hello Magpeye, and welcome to Seven Forums.

You could try the same tutorials linked in the previous posts to see if they may be able to help you was well.

 

[Magpeye]

Thank You!

I had thought I had done all of them, but I hadn't done the "How to Fix the Recycle Bin Icon Not Refreshing When Emptied." Because I thought that was not my issue exactly, but I did that and it fixed my problem I feel like a noob, thank you so much for the help.

 

[Brink]

You're most welcome. I'm glad you got it fixed.

 

[Insolentius]

I had the exact same problem as the OP (blank icon, no 'empty recycle bin' command & broken properties), and after spending more than an hour seeking a solution, I finally found it here (look for Elvandil's post) - Solved: Need to restore recycle bin on desktop | Tech Support Guy .

What initially led to this problem is that I let MalwareBytes remove everything related to JetClean (it recognized JetClean as a potential problem, and I just went ahead with the removal because I hand't used JetClean in ages anyway). As it turned out, this had the unfortunate effect of completely removing [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{645FF040-5081-101B-9F08-00AA002F954E}\ from the registry.

The fix I linked to above will help you create a .reg file that will restore the Recycle Bin stuff to its default values.

 

[ineuw]

Insolentius, Thanks for the solution. I fixed it on Windows 7 but don't remember how. I moved on to Windows 10 and the same thing happened there last week, but an update by Microsoft corrected it. Malwarebytes wants to quarantine every registry cleaner software, with the exception of Ccleaner and Bleachbit. I never had any difficulty with any one of them but in MB I created JetClean exceptions.

 

[MADDOGU4]

SOLVED: Window 7 "blank RECYCLE BIN ICON, no 'empty recycle bin' command & broken properties"


I had the exact same problem with my recycle bin as mentioned above (blank icon, no 'empty recycle bin' command & broken properties), and after spending more than an hour seeking a solution, I also used (look for Elvandil's post) - Solved: Need to restore recycle bin on desktop | Tech Support Guy .

What also initially led to this problem on my computer is that I let MalwareBytes remove everything related to JetClean (it recognized JetClean and its old folders in the APP DATA folders as a potential problems, and I just went ahead with the removal because I hadn't used JetClean in ages anyway). As mentioned above, it turned out, this had the unfortunate effect of completely removing [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{645FF040-5081-101B-9F08-00AA002F954E}\ from the registry.


So, I followed the instructions from the link, pasted the rb.reg file into my registry, then rebooted my computer and it fixed the recycle bin problem. All other remedies failed to solve the problem!