Deleting a file in Windows doesn't really delete it from your hard drive. First it goes to your Recycle bin (unless you hold down the Shift key while clicking on Delete). Then the location where the file resides on your hard drive is freed up for being overwritten. But until your machine lays down something else in that spot, the file is still there. And even when Windows overwrites it, it can still be recovered.In order to truly get rid of it so that it can't be recovered (except by supersecret spy agencies with black helicopters-for them you need to smash the hard drive to smithereens, and even then, who knows?), you need an application like Eraser 5.82.
This free app will "completely remove sensitive data from your hard drive by overwriting it several times with carefully selected patterns. You can drag and drop files and folders to the on-demand eraser, use the convenient Explorer shell extension or use the integrated scheduler to program overwriting of unused disk space or, for example, browser cache files to happen regularly."
Eraser 5.82
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