Open items in recycle bin without restoring

The Old New Thing seems to explain it: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2006/01/31/520225.aspx. FAT drives just use a folder C:\RECYCLED, and NTFS drives use the set of folders C:\RECYCLER\S-.... So it sound like your toolbar is just looking in there. I had a look once without it (sadly don't remember how.)

So: the hack is probably just to look in a hidden folder. I don't have a Windows machine on me to look at and test how easy it is to get in there. I doubt that Windows Explorer will do it, but cmd might. (At your own risk, etc.)

The next question is why Microsoft "lock" the files. It's probably so no idiot starts using the bin as their My Documents folder, or so you have to make a decision -- restore or delete, but no peeking.