$RECYCLE.BIN on Windows 7

Does anybody know where this folder comes from? To my knowledge I’ve always had a Recycle Bin, and I’ve always had “show hidden files and folders on” but I’ve never seen $RECYCLE.BIN that’s showing up on all my drives all of a sudden. Is it a weird new feature? Side effect of some sort of clean-up program (I don’t use anything esoteric, just generic CCleaner, Defraggler etc)?

If I try and delete it, Windows basically says it’s impossible to delete the directory, and the cumulative sized are similar to that of Recycle Bin, confirmed that it is just the system Recycle Bin directory.

It’s not a bad thing they’re there (in fact, I’ve always known they were super secretly there), I’m just confused since I’m 100% certain they weren’t visible before. It’s not even a hidden folder, hidden folder icons are transparent on the GUI, but it’s solid like non-hidden folders.

  1. it’s the “folder” where deleted items are moved. i.e. it’s the actual “recycle bin.”
  2. you’re seeing it because you or someone else unchecked “Hide protected operating system files” in the Folder Options.
  3. why on earth would your first notion be to try to delete it?
  1. Yeah, I figured.
  2. Ah, it’s the system files thing. Didn’t know I unchecked that.
  3. Because I figured if it was an important system file it wouldn’t let me delete it without jumping through hoops, and if it was a weird aberration I could.

This.

In Windows XP, the equivalent directory was called RECYCLED.

When you view the Recycle Bin in the normal way, you are shown the set union of all files in these storage areas on all drives, to give the illusion of a single Recycle Bin.