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I just pressed Delete on a file on one of my drives. It surprisingly didn't ask me whether I really wanted to move it to the trash bin, but just did it instantly. This is new behaviour, no? I have certainly not made any such changes.

Just to make sure, I tried several times on my desktop, with both a text document and a directory. Same thing. Just immediately blasted to the trash can. Very scary when I've been relying on the question to prevent me from deleting data by accident since... um... Windows 95?

I noticed an update to Windows 10 the other day. Was this changed in it? If so, why?!

Taavon T.
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4 Answers4

158

This is new behaviour, no?

Well, it's new behaviour since Windows 8.0.

I went through my collection of Mostly Legitimate Windows ISOs and installed all of them.

The option to enable/disable confirmations when sending files to Recycle Bin has been available ever since Windows 95 introduced the feature in general, but it was enabled by default up until Windows 7 (I tried SP1). However, fresh installations of Windows 8.0 and all later versions (8.1 all the way to 10.21H2) have the confirm prompt disabled by default.

Permanent deletion with Shift+Del or files too large for the Recycle Bin will still result in a confirmation dialog regardless of this setting. (Though oddly, if the entire Recycle Bin is manually turned off, prompts still remain disabled even though deletion is now permanent...)

Screenshot of the "Recycle Bin Properties" dialog in Windows 95, with the "Display delete confirmation dialog" option checked The same on Windows XP The same on Windows Vista The same on Windows 7 The same on Windows 8.0, now with the option unchecked The same on Windows 8.1 The same on Windows 10.1709 The same on Windows 10.21H2

Modern UI design seems to avoid confirm prompts for actions that are easily undone (e.g. restoring from Recycle Bin), so that when a confirmation dialog does show up, it actually means something important – and isn't as likely to get dismissed without even looking (alert fatigue).

For example, if the user gets prompted for all recycled files and habitually click "Yes", they're likely to never notice that sometimes the dialog says "File is too large for Recycle Bin, do you want to permanently delete it".

grawity
  • 501,077
9

Windows Update is capable of changing settings without prior notice.

If this setting was changed, here are the places to look, where this confirmation could have been disabled.

  • Right-click the Recycle Bin, select Properties and verify that "Display delete confirmation dialog" is set.

    enter image description here

  • Run gpedit.msc and navigate to
    User Configuration\Administrative Templates\Windows Components\File Explorer.
    Verify the setting of the policy named "Display confirmation dialog when deleting files".

    enter image description here

  • Run regedit and navigate to the key
    HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer. Right-click the right pane, select New > DWORD (32-bit) Value and name this as ConfirmFileDelete. The value data should be 1 to enable.

    enter image description here

Reference (and source of the images): How to Enable or Disable Delete Confirmation Dialog on Windows 10?

harrymc
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3

I see the same exact behavior on my machine (19043.1526).

I can only guess that they decided that the dialog was pointless because you can get the files back.

I myself do not find the dialog pointless.. often.. I am like "OH SHOOT! -- WHOOPS -- CANCEL"..

To put the behavior back the way it was, right click on the recycle bin -> Properties -> Check "Display Delete Confirmation Dialog".

Yes, I agree that this was bad to change the default without asking but Microsoft will do what Microsoft does. :P

Señor CMasMas
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3

Not sure about other folks, but for all of my windows machines the initial default setting has always been with no confirmation prompt if "deleting" a file i.e. moving to the Recycle Bin. The prompt can be turned on in the Recycle Bin properties. But I do always see a prompt for confirming if I select a file and press SHIFT+DEL to delete it permanently. Not sure if there is a setting to change that somewhere. But it is good to have it on all the time. For moving files to the Recycle Bin, not sure if it is really necessary to have the prompt for confirming turned on - it just adds another step. If you move something accidently to the Recycle Bin you can always restore it to the original folder.

JSSmith
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