Windows – How to (properly) access another users’ recycling bin without logging in as him

recycle-binstandard-useruacwindows 7

I am using Windows 7 daily as a limited user with UAC enabled. I log in as $USER and have have a dummy user called $ADMIN with Administrative access I use for elevation purposes.

Unfortunately, some elevated applications are aware of being elevated: running Explorer as admin still shows $USER's folders and permissions. Some other applications are not, and will try and access $ADMIN's folders and permissions.

In particular, I used a program (yes, I'm looking at you, TuneUp 2010) to find and delete cruft from my system. Unfortunately, when an elevated TuneUp deletes files it uses the $ADMIN's recycling bin.

Now. I don't want to log in as $ADMIN. It's a dummy account. It isn't supposed to be logged into. It's just there for elevation purposes. I don't want it to have a profile, a home folder and settings for it.

So what I want to do is use elevation to access $ADMIN's recycle bin and cleanly empty it. Windows seems to offer no way to do so, unfortunately:

  • Running Explorer as $ADMIN from the GUI will result in the $USER's folders being used.
    Running explorer as $ADMIN from the command prompt (using the elevate powertoy, for example) results in the following error message:

Windows cannot access the specified device, path, or file. You may not have the appropriate permissions to access the item.

[OK]

  • Running start . from an elevated command prompt results in the above error message.
  • Running notepad as $ADMIN and using the Open dialog as a primitive Explorer shows no way to access the recycling bin. Right clicking files from that screen will result in a temporary hang and in no menu being shown.
    Attempting to open the raw Recycling bin "raw" folder, C:\$Recycle.Bin\S-1-5-21-1970411373-1708269306-xxxxxxxxxx-1007\, from the above Open dialog results in the following error message:

Recycle Bin

You don’t have permission to open this file.

Contact the file owner or an administrator to obtain permission.

[OK]

I "fixed" the issue by issuing "del * /S /F /Q" from an elevated prompt from inside the bin "raw" folder but that's obviously not the way to go.

What should have I done instead?

It seems my question was not clear enough. How surprising. 🙂

Here's what I am trying to achieve. All I want to do is open this window as $ADMIN:

$USER's recycle bin window.

Best Answer

  1. Start an elevated copy of notepad -- or well, any program that has a modern Open dialog. (press the Windows key, type notepad, press Ctrl-Shift-Enter)
  2. From File choose Open.
  3. In the location bar at the top, click on the icon with the folder to switch to input mode and type the following (literally): Recycle Bin, followed by Enter.
  4. Change the dropdown at the lower-right of the Open window from Text Documents (*.txt) to All Files
  5. Lo and behod, the contents of $ADMIN's recycle bin!

Don't forget to close notepad when you're done!

(I agree, this is not really a 'proper' way, but I guess it's better than blindly wiping everything.)

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