I am using Windows 8 consumer preview edition. One thing that surprised me is, the default behavior when we try to a delete a file/folder. In Windows 7 and its predecessors, the next thing that happens when you press ‘delete‘ key is, you get a dialog box asking for confirmation if you would really want to delete the file/folder. This would prevent deletion in the cases of accidentally pressing the delete key on a file which you do not intend to delete.
File deletion confirmtaion dialog in Windows 7
In contrast to Windows 7 behavior, Windows 8 deletes files/folders straight away without asking for the user confirmation. Though this behavior can be altered by changing settings in recycle bin properties, it’s really surprising that Microsoft has changed the behavior of one of the most used operations to something users do not expect to be.
So if one deletes a file accidentally, then there are two ways to restore it.
- If you are in the same explorer window, you can press Ctrl-Z which will undo the file deletion.
- Restore it from Recycle bin
But if you had enabled the setting ‘Don’t move files to recycle bin‘, then neither of the above will work.
How to change this default behavior and get deletion confirmation dialog box each time when we delete a file?
Open Recycle bin properties and select the check button ‘Display delete confirmation dialog‘.
Excellent tip, thanks !