I must've been very bored one day because I had nothing better to do than
change the 'empty' and 'full' icons for my recycle bin.  I followed these
directions:

1) Open HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\ CLSID\
{645FF040-5081-101B-9F08-00AA002F954E}\DefaultIcon
2) Change the (Default) value to "filename, ##."
3) You can also change the Empty and Full icons for the Recycle Bin using the
respective values in the key.

   It seemed simple enough, but the icons won't switch automatically.  The
only way the 'empty' or 'full' icons change based on the recycle bin's status
is by clicking on the desktop and clicking on F5.  In other words the 'empty'
icon doesn't automatically change to the 'full' one when a file is put into
the recycle bin.
   The two icons are named recy~1.ico and recy~2.ico and are set to correspond
with the 'empty' and 'full' values in the registry.  However, I'm not sure
what to put for the 'default' value.
   Any troubleshooting tips so that the correct icons are displayed
automatically will be very appreciated.

Mark Scott Goldstein