Recycle Bin Dialog Box File Locations

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TinyTech-0626 asked Apr 21, '22 TinyTech-0626 commented Apr 23, '22

Recycle Bin Dialog Box File Locations

Hello All,

I am interested in dialog boxes, and their locations in C:\ in Windows 7, 10, 11.

For example:

When I right click on a folder and then left click on Delete, a dialog box opens that says "Are you sure you want to move this folder to the Recycle Bin?" And I have two buttons to choose from: Yes No

Example number 2:

When I right click on the Recycle Bin on my desktop, and then I left click on Empty Recycle Bin, a dialog box opens that says, "Are you sure you want to permanently delete this folder?" And I have two buttons to choose from: Yes No

For both of these dialog boxes, the title or heading at the top of the box is "Delete Folder".

My question is: Where in Windows.... Where in C:...... Where in C:\Windows..... Where in C:\Windows\System32.....

Where are these dialog boxes? In other words, what file is being referenced? .dll .mui etc

Any information will be extremely appreciated!

Have a great day!

Tiny_Tech

windows-10-general windows-11 windows-7

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Answer 1 · 2022-04-21T13:32:54.823Z

Reza-Ameri answered Apr 21, '22

In case you are referring to the folder location of the Recycle Bin , then it is located in C:\$RECYCLE.BIN assume you are referring to C: drive. It is a hidden folder in the system and if you remove attribute for system and hidden you should see it.

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Answer 2 · 2022-04-21T14:42:06.68Z

cooldadtx answered Apr 21, '22 TinyTech-0626 edited Apr 22, '22

They are simply message boxes. Message box is provided by the OS and displays some text, a set of limited buttons and an optional icon.

For C/C++/Win32 refer to this documentation.

For .NET you can use the MessageBox class. All Windows UI frameworks will provide a wrapper around this core function so the exact code can vary.

if (MessageBox.Show("Are you sure you want to permanently delete this folder?", "Delete Folder", MessageBoxButtons.YesNo, MessageBoxIcon.Question) == DialogResult.yes)
   //Permanently delete the folder

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TinyTech-0626 · Apr 22 at 07:50 AM

Thank you for your reply.

I am looking to modify the the Windows dialog box and button text using a 3rd party tool. I need to find the dll file that the OS references for the Recycle Bin dialog box so that I can achieve my goal.

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Answer 3 · 2022-04-21T15:20:03.917Z

Castorix31 answered Apr 21, '22 TinyTech-0626 commented Apr 23, '22

Where are these dialog boxes? In other words, what file is being referenced? .dll .mui etc

They are from the Shell, stored as Resources in localized shell32.dll.mui
For example on my French OS, I can find them in directory
C:\Windows\WinSxS\amd64_microsoft-windows-shell32.resources_31bf3856ad364e35_10.0.19041.964_fr-fr_da0e47a92ab5f042

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TinyTech-0626 · Apr 22 at 07:46 AM

Hello Castorix31,

Thank you so much for your reply.

I had a look in my en-us Windows 11 PC, and located two folders similar in name to what you posted:

amd64_microsoft-windows-shell32.resources_31bf3856ad364e35_10.0.22000.593_en-us_54c6507a5e3f27f4

amd64_microsoft-windows-shell32.resources_31bf3856ad364e35_10.0.22000.184_en-us_54d219185e3630be

Inside each folder is an MUI File named shell32.dll.mui. I had a look at each shell32.dll.mui file. The shell32.dll.mui file in each folder appear to be identical copies.

There are many dialog boxes in the shell32.dll.mui file, but not the one for the recycle bin.

Any other suggestions where I can look?

Thank you

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Castorix31 TinyTech-0626 · Apr 22 at 07:59 AM

There are the strings inside, used with MessageBox function
On my french OS, for the Recycle Bin :

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shell32dllmui.jpg (376.3 KiB)

TinyTech-0626 · Apr 22 at 08:23 AM

Using resource hacker, I cannot find the Recycle Bin dialog box in shell32.dll.mui located in:

amd64_microsoft-windows-shell32.resources_31bf3856ad364e35_10.0.22000.593_en-us_54c6507a5e3f27f4

amd64_microsoft-windows-shell32.resources_31bf3856ad364e35_10.0.22000.184_en-us_54d219185e3630be

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Castorix31 TinyTech-0626 · Apr 22 at 08:36 AM

As I said above, those are Strings, in a String Table
I copied/renamed it into .DLL to open it with VS :

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shell32dllmui-string-table.jpg (32.8 KiB)

shell32dllmui-strings.jpg (95.2 KiB)

TinyTech-0626 · Apr 22 at 09:57 AM

You are correct! Thank you!

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TinyTech-0626 · Apr 22 at 10:19 AM

Now for Part II - we know the location of the text for "Are you sure you want to permanently delete these items?"

What I would like to know is the text for the dialog box buttons. The options are Yes and No. I would like to modify this text, and change Yes to Y and No to N.

Where can I find the dialog box / dialog box button text for recycle bin related questions?

Any help with this will be greatly appreciated.

Tiny_Tech

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cooldadtx TinyTech-0626 · Apr 22 at 01:38 PM

Please use the Comment link to respond to answers instead of Write an Answer. Comments allow us to track your responses to others. Thanks.

You can't. This is a core Windows dialog. You have no control over the UI itself. If you need that functionality then you have to write your own version and, of course, only your app will use it. The string values are determined by the OS language and baked into the code. In theory I guess you could create your own "language", register it with the system and then pass the LANGID as part of the function call and it would then use your "localized" values. But that is a lot of work.

Please clarify exactly why you need this functionality? Modifying a standard Windows UI element for non-standard things would be a very bad idea in terms of usability.

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