Contrary to previous versions of Microsoft’s Windows OS environment, when you delete a file from a folder or physical drive on Windows 8, that file is shot straight to your recycle bin without any warning notification. This can be a good thing where people don’t like to be pestered for an additional step for a file the knowingly want to get rid of. However what if you made a mistake or someone in your household tapped the delete key while a file or folder was selected? This tutorial will show you how to enable the delete confirmation dialog box in Windows 8.
1. Power up and sign in to your Windows 8 laptop.
2. Right click on your recycle bin’s icon located on your desktop.
3. Click on Properties.
4. In the new pop up window you should see a general tab. Under it are the partitions listed for your physical drives. Our concern lies at the very end of the pop up window.
5. Check the box for Display delete confirmation dialog.
6. Click on Apply and then on OK.
7. You’ve now enabled the delete confirmation dialog box.
From here on out every file that you wish to delete, after hitting the Del key, you will be greeted with a dialog box asking for your confirmation on the command.
If the option to place a check box on Display delete confirmation dialog is greyed out/inoperable, you will need to bring the option to light using registry editor.
8. Press the Windows key + R and type regedit.
9. Hit Enter.
10. On the left pane, navigate to:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer
11. On the right pane, right on a blank space. Create a new DWORD value.
12. Name it "ConfirmFileDelete" (without the inverted comma's).
13. Double click on the newly created entry and check the data value. By default it’s 0, we need it to be 1.
14. Click on OK for the entry to save.
15. Close registry editor and retry steps 2 to 6.
You have now successfully enabled the delete confirmation dialog box in Windows 8.