If you’ve customized your system by using different icons for the Recycle Bin so it has a more stylish look when Full and Empty, you may run into a problem with the icons behaving in the desired fashion. Sometimes they stay stuck so that a Full Recycle Bin looks empty and vice versa, and the only way to update the icon is to refresh your Desktop. Here’s how to get your icons to behave like they are supposed to.
1. Click the Orb (Start Button).
2. Go to the Search programs and files textbox and input regedit.
3. Select regedit.exe from the results.
4. When the UAC prompt appears, click the Yes button.
5. In the left pane of the Registry Editor, go to (and select):
HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/Explorer/CLSID/{645FF040-5081-101B-9F08-00AA002F954E}/
6. In the right pane, double click on Default.
7. The value will be something like %USERPROFILE%\Icons\defaulticonname.ico (where defaulticonname.ico is the name of your icon file). Append a comma and the number 0 to the end of the string so that it now looks like %USERPROFILE%\Icons\defaulticonname.ico,0.
8. Click OK.
9. Repeat steps 7 and 8 for empty and full.
10. Close Regedit and restart your system.
Your custom icons for the Recycle Bin should now work as they are supposed to.
