If you’ve ever meant to empty your recycle bin but accidentally hit the delete button on the recycle bin drop down you may have thought that all was lost.  If you are running Vista there is a confirmation dialog box that appears if you accidentally choose delete that will ask you to confirm your selection.  If like many people you simply ignore this dialog confirmation box and hit enter you can restore your recycle bin icon to the desktop but simply visiting the control panel.

It’s happened to all of us at one time or another.  We become so used to seeing pop up dialog boxes that we tend to just gloss over the message and press enter as an almost automatic reflex.  Well Microsoft has compensated for this by providing a simple way to restore recycle bin if we do find ourselves in this situation.

The first step to restoring a deleted recycle bin icon is to fire up the control panel by accessing the start menu.  That familiar windows icon button on the keyboard will display the start menu and from there you can use your mouse to access the control panel.  When the control panel opens you will be presented with a series of options to include:  System and Maintenance, Security, Network and Internet, Hardware, etc.  Choose Appearance and Personalization and then Personalization from the menu choices. 

Under tasks on the left side of the page choose “change desktop icons”.  Once you click on that link you’ll see a little dialog box that pops up with common desktop icons.  Among them you will see “recycle bin”; simply check the box and the recycle bin is restored.  Once that is completed hit okay and you will see your recycle bin icon appear on your desktop.

Accidents happen, it’s reassuring to know that some of them are not irreparable.