Shortcut virus is something which can block you from opening files and folders. Moreover it can infect your other files and soon your whole system will get infected with it. You should remove shortcut virus from PC as soon as you notice something fishy in your system. There are many people out there who are looking for methods to remove shortcut virus from laptop and how to remove shortcut virus from pen drive. Let us tell you that the primary reason of getting infected with it by downloading unverified files from internet.
If you don’t know about this virus, then let us tell you that a shortcut virus is known as one of the most harmful virus of Windows. It can copy itself and create unlimited shortcut folders, and if you will plug in external storage device, then it may get infected with it too. Do you know that you can also remove shortcut virus using CMD?We have received many messages of people asking to show best ways to remove shortcut virus in Windows 10. So we have prepared this post on how to remove shortcut virus from PC permanently and how to remove shortcut virus from USB.
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How To Remove Shortcut Virus From Windows PC/Laptop/USB Pen Drive
Before moving on, let us tell you that there are two type of shortcut viruses out there. One is Flash drive Shortcut virus and other one is File and Folder Shortcut virus.
- File and Folder Shortcut Virus – Files and folder shortcut virus is one of the most harmful virus for PC. This virus will replicate your files and folders, hide and replace it with shortcuts.exe. You will then have to click on that file to open your file or folders, and once you have clicked it will replicate itself. Your files and entire hard disk may get infected with it if you have not fixed it. These kind of viruses may steal your important data and credit card information as well.
- USB Pen Drive Shortcut Virus – USB Shortcut Virus is also known as Flash Drive Shortcut Virus. This kind of virus infects every file and folder of your external device. It may create a shortcut for the drive like “Flash Disk Shortcut.exe”. This virus will put all of the contents of the USB drive in one hidden folder.
Method #1. How To Remove Shortcut Virus Using CMD
The easiest way to remove shortcut virus from Windows PC or laptop is by using CMD. You can easily open CMD by right clicking on start menu or click “Start” then type “CMD” and open it with administrative privileges.
- Once CMD window open, just type the drive letter of your flash drive or external hard disk and a colon after it. Here in this post we are taking example of drive F (it is infected) eg. F:.
- Once you have done typing this, you will be assigned drive F for further actions.
- Now type this attribute “attrib f:*.* /d /s -h -r -s”.
- Now you will begin to see your files and Shortcut Virus must be removed.
Please take note the f: after the attribute, change it with your flash disk drive letter; if your flash drive, drive letter is e: then change it with e:.
Try also this command if the above doesn’t work; attrib -h -r -s /s /d e:*.* (change the e: to your device or flash drive letter).
Method #2. Remove Shortcut Virus From Windows Using BAT [Batch File]
A .BAT file is an executable file which can be easily made with Notepad and some codes. If you want to remove shortcut virus from computer or pen drive, then you can consider using this method. Though removing shortcut virus using CMD is easiest method, but if it is not working for you, then you can try this method too. In this method you just have to copy paste some code into notepad, run the file and it will remove shortcut virus within minutes. To use this method, follow the steps mentioned below.
- First of all open a new Notepad document. (Run > type Notepad).
- Now you will have to copy paste the code mentioned below in that file which you just opened.
@echo off
attrib -h -s -r -a /s /d Drive-Name:*.*
attrib -h -s -r -a /s /d Drive-Name:*.*
attrib -h -s -r -a /s /d Drive-Name:*.*
@echo complete
- Do note that you have to replace the “Drive-Name” with your drive.
- You will now have to save this file as removevirus.bat name or you can name it whatever you want and save it. Make sure you save file in desktop and you have added .bat at end.
- Just double click on the file and it will run automatically.
- Now all the shortcut virus will be removed from your drives.
Method #3. How To Remove Shortcut Virus From Registry
If your system is infected by shortcut virus and you don’t want to download any third party tool to remove it, then you can try this method. Do note that this method includes modifying registry keys which may destroy your system if done anything wrong. Proceed only if you know what you are doing and you can easily revert back if anything went wrong. You can easily clean shortcut virus from computer or laptop using this method. Follow below steps:
- First of all open Task Manager by pressing Ctrl + Shift + Esc, or you can also open it by a doing a right click on your Taskbar and then clicking on “Open Task Manager”.
- Now go to Processes tab, and find exe.
- Once you have found it, just right click on it and select End Processes.
- Now open Run by pressing Win+R keys and then type regedit and hit Enter. This will open the Registry Editor.
- Now you will have to navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/Run.
- Now on the right side, look for entry named odwcamszas, if found, just right click on it and delete it.
Please note that there are chances that even after following the above mentioned steps correctly, you might not find the specified registry key if your system is highly infected, so in that case you can skip this method.
Verdict
Shortcut virus is one of the most harmful virus which may destroy your files, folders and sometimes entire hard disk. If you have identified it in your system, then you should remove shortcut virus from PC permanently immediately. These viruses are mainly spread by using USB external hard drives, so be careful while sharing files via USB. We have also shared methods on how to remove shortcut virus from pendrive in this post too. If you know about more methods to remove shortcut virus using CMD, then do let us know about them via comments below.