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just working with my home PC here, I hope this is a relevant question for SU.

For some context I was clearing out my recycle bin like a responsible user and found 1 file that I was curious to see what it was as I had no memory of it. I couldn't be bothered to restore it and navigate to whichever end of the universe it came from so thought "eh, I'll just use cmd to open it". Turns out the way recycle bin works is such that the file isn't really there, just a file as a reference pointer with a record of where it came from and Explorer covers this up like the conspirator it is. so I just used Explorer.

HOWEVER, While doing this I have discovered a second Recycle bin folder exists (along with a weird file but I'll just ignore it). the SID of this folder, having ran wmic useraccount get name,sid to get a list of users/SIDs, is DefaultUser0.

Some googling later and I'm under the impression that this account should not exist anymore.

I've also taken over control of the folder through right click > properties, and now Explorer just shows it as a duplicate Recycle bin, and trying to open it just opens my recycle bin instead of that folder. I'm concerned that this will cause problems if there is anything within Windows that's expecting to access DefaultUser0's folder, however unlikely that is.

Unfortunately because of how Explorer operates and alters the right click menu when working with the recycle bin, I can't undo my change to the permissions, because the permissions dialogue is replaced with the bin-specific version that has no permissions options.

My question is, what command(s) should I run to revert my takeover of the file (if it even matters), or better yet, should I simply obliterate the DefaultUser0 user entirely, given I'm 99% sure it shouldn't still be here? And how to do that? Any other cleanup required?

Thanks a lot.

For clarity this is a home edition PC with no other users by myself, list of user accounts as reported by wmic, other than my own, is:

Administrator, ASPNET, DefaultAccount, defaultuser0, Guest, HomeGroupUser$, WDAGUtilityAccount,

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1 Answer 1

Reset to default
0

It is used by Windows 10 Feature and Large Upgrades and always has a current date. It does not do any harm and you can just leave it. If you force it out somehow, it will just come back so just leave it be. Anything that creates Windows.old will create it.

There is no issue with this folder existing and no need to delete it. I trust this addresses your question.

You can, if you wish, delete the contents of the User0 folder, just no need to delete the User0 folder itself.

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4
  • Thanks for the explanation, this is sufficient :) Just found it odd that it had its own recycle bin when its never logged in as a "real" user thus the bin is never used. I suppose explorer must have been ran under that user at some point (presumably during Windows installation, makes sense from the creation dates) and created it?
    – ch4rl1e97
    Commented Feb 18, 2020 at 3:06
  • If my answer is sufficient, can you mark it accordingly? Yes, Windows will use the creation date at the time it makes it
    – anon
    Commented Feb 18, 2020 at 3:08
  • Sorry thought I'd done that. Alright
    – ch4rl1e97
    Commented Feb 18, 2020 at 4:07
  • Thanks for the follow up - Appreciate it
    – anon
    Commented Feb 18, 2020 at 4:25

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