How To Remove Shortcut Virus in one minute

What is a Shortcut Virus?

A shortcut virus is nothing but a malware that hides your original files/folders inside shortcuts.

Even though  the original files are in the drive itself, you can neither find it nor copy/cut it to another location using the windows explorer .(in the advanced stage).

At first, it doesn’t harm your files but if not cured later, it makes them corrupt and can even delete all the files depending on the type of shortcut virus.

How Did the Shortcut Virus landed in your USB Drive?

1. You downloaded an executable (.exe) file from untrustworthy third-party software which had the virus hidden.

2. You connected someone’s  infected USB Stick/Pen drive which spread the virus in your PC from where it entered your USB drive after connecting it.

3. You connected your own Flash Drive into someone’s PC which contained the shortcut virus from which it spread over to your removable device .

Method 1 Using Software named USBFix- 

USBFix is a free virus removal tool which will help you to detect and remove shortcut virus. It can scan infected removable devices, USB’s external HDD’s, smartphones, digital cameras, etc.

It’s a plug and play software. Just Download, Open, Run.

This software is designed by El Desaparecido and developed by sosvirus.net.

The options in it are ,

Vaccinate: It is the permanent solution for the shortcut virus. This option will create a new autorun.inf file in your removable drive. An autorun file handles the auto-starting of the drive. So, the newly created file will have protective measures to prevent the shortcut virus from spreading.

Repair: It repairs the damaged files in your removable drive. This will help in the recovery of hidden files, registry entries, task manager and many more

1. Back-Up: This option will backup your files before running UsbFix to revert things back later if something goes wrong. You would be pretty  smart to do this first .

Steps To Remove Shortcut Virus Using UsbFix are given below:

1.First Download USBFIX.

2.Then connect your USB drive/removable device which contains the shortcut virus.

3. After that run USBFIX software.

4. Lastly click on Deletion. On clicking it, the process to remove shortcut virus will start. It will then ask you to restart your PC.

Method 2 > Using command prompt

Some shortcut virus can be harder to remove ,try using command prompt to remove then-

First open Command prompt as Administrator .

For Windows 10/7: Windows key + R > Type CMD & ENTER,

For Windows 8: Search for “CMD” > Right click to CMD and Select “Run as Administrator” or right click over Start button and select “command prompt (Admin) “.

Link Your USB storage (Pen drive/SD card) to your Computer.

Scan your storage with your antivirus program (even free antivirus like Avast would do good) > If your antivirus finds virus then clean/delete/quarantine it.

Type in Command prompt :  attrib -h -r -s /s /d <Your USB drive letter>:\*.* (See <Your USB drive letter> from My computer and then type it For ex, if your drive letter is “D” then the command is like: ” attrib -h -r -s /s /d D:\*.* “)

To know about this command Type ” attrib /? ” In CMD.

Now your Shortcut files again convert to normal files. Delete unknown files from your storage after command process is done. I highly recommend you to after removing shortcut virus copy your USB data to your computer > Format the USB storage > Then again re-copy USB data back.

Well that’s the way I remove shortcut virus when I encounter them. My university computer lab is overflowing with them ;).Know any other way , feel free to discuss .