I remember once having a client who used their *recycle bin* as a bit of a filing system. Anything they didn’t want now, but might need later, they put in there for safe keeping. Safe keeping?!?! Well, we sure can’t let our lusers get away with that - lets teach them the error of their ways. Here is how to force an empty of the recycle bin at logoff via a vb script.

Simply create a GPO that calls the vollowing VB script as part of a “logoff” script, and apply the GPO to all of your users. Easy.

Option Explicit

Dim objWshShell, objFSO, objWshNetwork
Dim objRecycleBin, objFolderItems, objItem, strSpecialFolderName

'Setup main variables and objects
Set objWshShell = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
Set objFSO = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
Set objWshNetwork = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Network")

Set objRecycleBin = GetSpecialFolderObject("Recycle Bin")
Set objFolderItems = objRecycleBin.Items()
For Each objItem In objFolderItems
	If (objItem.Type = "File Folder") Then
		objFSO.DeleteFolder(objItem.Path)
	Else
		objFSO.DeleteFile(objItem.Path)
	End If
Next

Function GetSpecialFolderObject(NameOfFolder)
	Dim objShellApp, i, objSpecialFolder
	Set objShellApp = CreateObject("Shell.Application")
	On Error Resume Next
	For i=0 To 40	'40 is highest value for special folders
		Set objSpecialFolder = objShellApp.NameSpace(i)
		If (StrComp(objSpecialFolder.Title,NameOfFolder,vbTextCompare)=0) Then
			Set GetSpecialFolderObject = objSpecialFolder
			Exit For
		End If
	Next
	Err.Clear
End Function