This tutorial will teach you how to make the recycle bin disappear from the desktop in Microsoft Windows XP.

There are a lot of tutorials out there that will teach you to delete certain registry keys or make you jump through other hoops to make the recycle bin disappear. But some of these methods are very hard to reverse and more time consuming than they need to be.

Instead of taking the risk of messing up your computer's registry, we recommend you download a program, by Microsoft, called TweakUI. It's a very small program that will easily rid your desktop of the recycle bin along with other icons if desired. And the best part is, you can get the icon back very easily should you decide to restore your recycle bin to the desktop. You can download this program by clicking here.

After downloading the program, run the .exe to install TweakUI. Now, click Start > All Programs > Powertoys for Windows XP > TweakUI.


Now that TweakUI is open, click where indicated in the picture above then press OK. Now your recycle bin has disappeared. If you ever need to restore it, open TweakUI again and tick the checkbox next to recycle bin.

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