Empty Recycle Bin wants to delete WINDOWS

[GEIST]

I just became aware of an issue I have never ever run into nor heard of before.

My Recycle Bin says it's empty, yet when I try to empty it nonetheless, it asks me if I want to delete WINDOWS. When I scan the the RECYCLER directory on my system partition, it reports there is a file named dc1.url in there that cannot be opened.

A quick Google search revealed that the existence of such file is how Windows handles its recycler business, yet this particular dc1.url seems to be pointing at my WINDOWS directory and cannot be accessed nor deleted because I simply can't find it anywhere.

Now I'm aware that when attempting to manually delete the WINDOWS folder it will say it cannot be deleted, but in this case I do not wanna risk clicking OK to see what happens if I attempt to delete WINDOWS in this case.

I'm at a loss here. I can't even find dc1.url in the registry, nor by searching for the file. Whatever happened there must have happened in the past few hours but I can't think of anything because so far I've onyl been browsing my regular (safe) websites and haven't downloaded nor installed anything.

I have attached a screenshot that shows the following:

- A widget that shows the recycle bin status (in this case FULL) - This made me suspicious in the first place

- The EMPTY recycle bin

- recycle bin / file delete prompt for WINDOWS

- ESS scan report windows showing the suspicious Dc1.URL fiel that cannot be opened

Any pointers would be greatly appreciated. I'll update this post if there is any progress.

[Buendia]

It happened to me also in XP; empty Recycle Bin shows as full and when I try to 'empty' it it throws an error (the file cannot be accessed bla bla).

Just delete any scrap file and then empty the bin; it should come back to normal.

[GEIST]

Update: It seems to be back to normal now. The Recycle Bin is showing as empty properly now, and ESS is not reporting that locked hidden dc1.url file anymore. I'm in the midst of a complete in-depth system scan but besides that I have not done anything about this issue since I have posted this thread.

So this issue went away as mysteriously as it started. :|

[JRosenfeld]

When that happened to me, just restarting the computer fixed it.

[Eric Veteran]

This is an old glitch, but I guess they never fixed it. I have no idea what caused it specifically but restarting my computer always got rid of it.

[WatchTheSoup]

Sometimes the recycle bin database gets corrupted.

Next time this happens log in with an admin account and delete the C:\RECYCLER or C:\Recycled folder, log off and log back in.

Problem solved