Remove Shortcut Virus from USB Flash Drive

Introduction:

Shortcut virus can merely be defined as a type of worm or Trojan which hides or replace your files and leaves an adverse impact on the proper functioning of your PC. The Shortcut virus leaves a shortcut of your files and makes it inaccessible to the user. It is a kind of malicious software that can steal your information, damage your files and also can ruin your system. Although it is widespread if you had paid attention towards it, sometimes while connecting pen drive to your computer, you must have noticed that it does not get connected easily and while opening a file, it asks to open with a shortcut.

This is what is called a shortcut virus about which we are going to discuss later here. The symptoms of Shortcut Viruses are evident and apparent. The file you will copy to your USB drive will get converted to shortcut automatically and will open the same folder in a new window. A straightforward way to detect that your PC or USB drive is infected by the Shortcut viruses slow functioning of the system such as taking more than a long time in opening PC, frequent crashes or receiving error messages on a computer screen… It is very much essential to detect such malware on time as it may cause a massive loss of data and information and finally your data can be compromised.

Sometimes you must have noticed that the files and folders turn automatically into shortcuts. This is due to the shortcut virus. Mainly there are two types of shortcut virus which is File and folder shortcut virus & Flash drive shortcut virus.

What is shortcut virus recover?

Removing shortcut virus is very important because if it is not removed, it hampers the data and information when transferred. There are chances of error while transferring the data if shortcut virus remover is not used. Shortcut virus recover techniques help us in recovering data which gets corrupt due to shortcut virus.

Symptoms through which you can identify that your PC is suffering from shortcut virus:

  • An unexpected typical sign of virus infection will blink as a pop up on your screen. They are very irritating sometimes as well, but this is a clear indication of malfunctioning of the system. Sometimes might be they ask you to click on pop-ups but simple way to avoid such thing is to avoid and do not click on the pop-up.
  • Slow performance of your PC. If your RAM and hard disk memory are enough and still your PC is taking longer than average time in opening, this is the indication of a Shortcut virus.
  • Hiding or missing some files. If you are not able to find your saved data without deleting, the culprit might be the virus here, which is moving around the files and impacting them.
  • Unavailability of storage space. If suddenly you get the notification of less space storage, it might be the indication of virus which is trying to make your PC unusable.
  • Crashes such as automatic shutdown of PC, getting the error message, again and again, opening or closing of PC suddenly if system freezes or hangs frequently is a clear indication of a virus.

How to remove shortcut virus from USB?

When the shortcut Virus attacks your USB, all your data will be changed into shortcuts, and you won’t be able to access them at all. To open the shortcut files or access them, you must first remove the virus and make your Flash Drive totally Virus Free. Shortcut virus remover becomes most vital if you want to access the shortcut files on your USB/Flash drive.

Although the easiest shortcut virus remover option is to format the USB drive with any third-party software or by the default Windows option that will cost you your data as all the data will be lost in the process of formatting the USB drive. Here, we want a shortcut virus remover tool which can remove the shortcut virus from your USB without formatting.

Fortunately, we have a widely used favorite tool, Command Line (also known as CMD) which is a shortcut virus remover tool which can convert your shortcut files into the original ones without formatting your data and hence satisfy all your needs. The shortcut virus will be removed from your USB, and all data in it will be as it is.

Although the command line will fix your issue, the improper usage of CMD may cause serious trouble for your system. Following are the steps for removing the shortcut virus from CMD.

  • Right click on Start and select Command Prompt. Give your Administrator username and password if the system prompts you for it.
  • Type the Drive letter which is infected for example G: if the USB Drive’s name is G
  • Type: attrib -r -a -s -h *.* and press Enter
  • Type: del autorun.inf and press Enter

Finishing all the above steps will successfully remove the shortcut virus from your USB drive without formatting it. If at all your data is lost (which has a negligible chance as no formatting is performed), there is always a Data Recovery Tool present to recover your data.

How to remove shortcut virus from PC?

After you have performed all the necessary steps to remove the shortcut virus from your USB Drive and while you re-insert the USB in your PC, and still see those shortcut folders, then maybe there is something wrong with your PC and there are chances that your PC is infected by the Shortcut Virus which must be addressed. The shortcut viruses are very hard to detect and no matter which shortcut virus remover to you download, some of them might not even know about the existence of the shortcut virus and hence will not be able to remove the virus, and the problem will persist giving you a tough time.
To the rescue, there are better ways to remove shortcut viruses permanently from your PC than to download that shortcut virus remover software. They will not only kill your time but also will be of no help whatsoever. Steps for shortcut virus remover in a better and efficient way are listed below.
• Press Ctrl+ Shift+ Esc to open Task manager on your PC. When the Task manager is opened, go to the Process tab
• After opening the Process tab, search for the Process exe or any other such process and end them. You can do this by right-clicking the process and pressing End Task.
• Press Windows key + R to open the Run command. In the space provided, type ‘regedit’ and hit enter to open Registry Editor.
• When you have access to the Registry Editor, navigate to the key below HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/Run
• After you have the access of the above key, browse to Registry Key “odwcamszas.exe” and Right Click. After right click, reboot your PC for saving the changes.

After you have completed the above steps as mentioned, correctly, the Shortcut Virus will be removed entirely from your Registry and hence from your PC.

  • Shortcut virus remover tool

A shortcut virus remover tool is a free tool that is available free of cost with the name of USB Fix. The tool helps to remove Shortcut viruses and has proven very much useful in it. It is very light in size (1.1 MB) as well hence no extra burden for your PC. The main advantage of the Shortcut Virus Remover tool is that it can remove the shortcut virus from your USB and PC both at once making it very handy and useful for the PCs infected with the Shortcut Virus. The Interface is very, and even somebody who is not so technical can also use it for virus removal.

You can connect more than one USB to your PC which is infected by the Shortcut Virus. Once the virus is removed from your system, the toll will make sure that the virus does not enter to your PC or USB in future as well hence making it completely safe and secured from the Shortcut virus. Also, the shortcut virus remover tool is compatible with all the versions of Windows and hence can be run on Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7,8 and Windows 8 without any problem. In a nutshell, this USB Fix has been tried and tested and has proven to be most useful in treating the Shortcut Virus infections in both your PC and USB drives.

How to download the shortcut virus remover tool:

Shortcut virus remover tool is something which can remove shortcut virus and threats from your PC or USB drive. This tool is extremely light in weight and cleans the virus from the infected drive and restores all the information available in the files.
Some of the shortcut virus remover tools which you can easily find on the internet are
1) Avast Antivirus.
2) Kaspersky Virus removal tool
3) Avira
4) Bitdefender
5) AVG windows and many more.
6) USB Fix

The above-listed tools when used correctly and with the combination of each other can clean your PC and USB Drive. It can be seen that there are many Shortcut removal tools available for free and paid downloads and it entirely depends on your system requirements and the severity of the infection, which one you should use.

Shortcut virus remover CMD:

Antivirus is not needed for performing this operation. Steps for removing shortcut virus using CMD:
• Plug in virus affected drive, press Win key+R to open the run box and type CMD & hit the enter key.
• Open your drive by entering your drive letter and press enter. To find drive open my computer and check drive icon.
• Now press “del*. Ink” and hit Enter.
• At last type “attrib -s -r -h *. * /s /d /l” command and press enter.

In simpler words:
• Shortcut virus can also be removed using CMD.
• Click on “Start” – Run – type CMD and click on ok.
• Let suppose your drive letter is “E.”
• Enter the below-mentioned command.
• “attrib -h -r -s /s /d E: *. *”
• “attrib E: *. * /d /s -h -r -s”
• Replace “E” with relevant infected drive letter which might be (G, H, L) anything.
• Wait for few seconds and check your drive. Your folder has been recovered.
Another way of deleting shortcut virus through WINRAR:
Steps to be followed:
• Download WINRAR and open it.
• Go to the infected drive of your PC or USB Flash drive location.
• Copy all the files and paste it on any safe location so that you can access them later.
• Format your infected hard drive or USB drive
• Copy all the data again in your drive or USB pen drive.
By using these tricks of shortcut virus remover, your PC will become totally, and your system will be protected for the future as well.

Shortcut virus remover from windows 10:

This kind of shortcut virus remover can be transmitted from one computer to the another when we transfer data from virus affected PC to the average PC. The primary source of shortcut viruses are the internet; third party software’s, etc; the main problem with these viruses is that they get multiplied and hide the original files creating a shortcut for the same. Standard antiviruses are not able to detect this virus quickly.
There are many ways to remove shortcut virus, but the straightforward way is that you can download any antivirus software and run it to your computer. Avast is the best antivirus for shortcut virus remover.
(Method 1) Apart from that, you can also remove the virus permanently from your system through the following steps:
• Open task manager by pressing Ctrl+Shift+ESC& to go to the process tab.
• Look for the process exe or any other such process, post that presses right key and selects END task.
• Hit windows key + R then type “regedit” & press enter to open registry editor.
• Browse to the following registry key:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/Run
• Browse for the registry key “odwcamszas.exe” & right click.
• Reboot your PC for saving changes.
(Method 2) Removing a virus with the help of virus removing tool:
• Download shortcut remover software.
• Extract it using ZIPRAR or any other file decompressor.
• Then run your shortcut virus remover software on your flash drive.
• Select the drive from which you want to remove the virus.
• Click on scan button.
• Wait for scan completion and press “Enter.” The entire shortcut virus will get listed.
• Now click on delete button it will remove all the shortcut viruses.

Shortcut virus remover for windows 7:

For removing shortcut virus through virus removing tools is the easiest way to remove the virus.
Steps to be followed:
• Download software of shortcut virus remover.
• Open the software.
• Select the computer drive which is infected by the virus.
• Choose the drive from the given list of drive in the software and press scan button.
• The list will appear on the screen, and you have to click on delete button.
• The virus is gone.
Another way of removing the shortcut virus (.BAT file):
• This is another way of removing virus. This .bat file will help you to remove the virus from your system. It works on the system which is completely affected due to the virus. It is a bit tough for the people belonging from the non-technical field if you follow the complete manual process it will going to help.
@ echo off
attrib -h -s -r -a /s /d Name_Drive:*.*
attrib -h -s -r -a /s /d Name_Drive:*.*
attrib -h -s -r -a /s /d Name_Drive:*.*
@echo complete
• Save the file with removevirus.bat
• Infected drive_name to be replaced by name_drive.
• Close the file and run it.

Conclusion

With the increased usage of internet for surfing websites and downloading contents, Virus attacks on PCs and USB drives are heard quite often these days. Shortcut Virus is another such kind of virus which has become very common in the Virus prone systems. It does not only post a threat to your data but removing and treating it, is quite a task for the non-technical people. The ways of Shortcut virus removal includes the installation of various Anti-viruses but most of them are not helpful in detecting the Shortcut Virus, and you keep on facing the problems thinking your system is free from Virus.

We have discussed steps and methods of Shortcut Virus remover and how can it be treated from third-party tools and windows tools and hope they will prove to be helpful to you guys. Depending upon your system, version of windows and severity of the virus, if you follow the above steps as mentioned, I am sure you will get rid of this stubborn Shortcut Virus in no time. Apart from that virus can be avoided easily by taking certain other precautions such as avoid plugging infected external devices, do not open doubtful emails. Equip yourself with these tools and take little precaution you will easily be able to eradicate this virus from your PC making your PC completely clean.

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