Resize the Recycle Bin in XP.
If your hard drive is short on space you might want to consider
reducing the size of your Recycle Bin. By default Windows XP
reserves 10% of your hard drive for the bin. You can save up to
3GB of space if you resize a bin to 1% on a 40GB hard drive. You
can resize individual drive or all of them globally.
Before starting, I would recommend emptying the bin first. (Of
course you should verify what you are emptying first.) You may
also want to create a Restore Point before applying this or any
system changes.
Right click on the Recycle Bin icon and select Properties.
From the Recycle Bin Properties screen you can choose to
configure drives independently or Globally by setting the same
size for all drives. Here you can also choose to remove files
immediately and not put them in the Recycle Bin at all. I wouldn't
recommend that option however.
In this instance since I have multiple drives of various sizes
I will choose to configure each drive separately. Just select the
tab for each drive and move the slider to accommodate the
percentage of space you wish to use.
Once you have finished resizing click Apply and OK.
The size you choose is user specific. You may want to increase
the size of the Recycle Bin or turn it off completely.
At work you might want to
leave the settings as they are in case you unintentionally recycle
an important report you need 5 months later.
