Today I will tell you how to remove shortcut virus from pen drive or hard disk.
When I was a newbie to computers I also suffered from shortcut virus problem. Its most irritating virus problem we get in our computers. Sometimes we get pop up on opening file or file is not opened. So don’t worry today you will learn how to remove shortcut virus from pen drive.

What is shortcut virus?

First we need to learn what is shortcut virus??
Its just a simple virus which creates shortcuts of every file and folders and spread to every part of computer. It gets transferred from hard disk to pen drive as soon as connected and vice versa. It can be either Trojan Or Combination of Worm and Trojan.

Types Of Shortcut Virus

There are two types of shortcut viruses, which can harm your PC.

1. Pen drive Shortcut Virus
This virus create pen drive as shortcut. To open your files you have to click on it. This is basically a Trojan which takes all files on pen drive and put them in shortcut ‘pen drive shortcut.exe’.

2. Folders And File Shortcut Virus
This type of virus is Trojan as well as worm. Which duplicates files and folders and hide them under shortcut.exe.
In this condition you can access folder but don’t have access to files in it. To open the files you need to open shortcut.exe, Which upon opening install some harmful software in your PC. This software can steal your personal information like credit card derails, computing habits, etc.

From Where Shortcut Virus Came To PC

You might be thinking that from where did your PC or pen drive got infected to shortcut virus. As you have installed good antivirus in computer and also didn’t download any file from any unsecured source.

Reasons For Injection Of USB Shortcut Virus

1. You transfer some files from your friend in his pen drive to your PC, pen drive was infected with shortcut virus it came over to your PC. This is most common reason of injection.

2. Your PC was infected with this virus but as soon as you plugged in your pen drive it got infected.

3. If have not done anything discussed above than for sure you have downloaded some malware from unsecured website.
Which was not scanned by your antivirus.

How To Remove Shortcut Virus From Pen drive

Now question arises how to remove shortcut virus from your PC or Pen drive. So I am sharing 3 best and easiest methods to remove shortcut from virus flash drive.
So without wasting time lets start exploring methods.

Method 1. Using USB Fix

If your flash drive is infected with shortcut virus than you can try USB Fix method, its one of the easiest method to remove shortcut virus.
1. Download USB Fix.
2. Connect Pen drive to be cleaned of shortcut virus.
3. Run USB Fix.
4. Select “Deletion” and wait for process to remove shortcut virus from your pen drive.
Important Note: All other processes will restart while software runs so keep other programs or files closed. Otherwise, there will be loss of data.
To see log report Go to C:\USBfix.txt.

Method 2. Remove Shortcut Virus using CMD

If you don’t want to download any software to remove virus, then you can use CMD to remove shortcut virus.
You might be familiar with CMD. Just plug the USB and follow steps give below.
1. Open CMD by pressing windows+R or from Start Menu.
2. Note down the Drive Letter of USB drive from My Computer.
3. I am assuming drive letter to be “G”.
4. Migrate to G drive in CMD by entering G and press enter.
5. Now copy and paste the code given below
“attrib g:*.* /d /s -h -r -s”
Replace “g” with drive letter of your pen drive.
6. Now shortcut virus will be removed from selected flash drive.

Method 3: Using Notepad

This one is another easy method you can try out.
1. Open Notepad.
2. Copy and paste code given below.
@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
3. Replace drive name with name of your flash drive.
4. Save this file as virusremover.bat.
5. Run virusremover.bat and restart PC.
6. Shortcut virus are now removed from your PC.

Method 4: Using VBSCRIPT To Remove Shortcut Virus

In this method we will be using a VBSCRIPT to remove shortcut virus from flash drive.

Just download virusremover.vbs file and run it.

Now shortcut virus is removed from your PC and Flash Drive.

How To Protect From Shortcut Virus Infection In Future

Now you have removed shortcut virus from your PC or Flash Drive and your PC is secured. What if in future your PC gets infected again. So to prevent your PC from shortcut virus from future infections you need to do some precautions.

Precautions To Follow

1. Scan your PC regularly for malwares with Malware Bytes.

2. Don’t open files or pen drive with Autorun.

3. Install and setup a good antivirus like Symantec or QuickHeal.

Conclusion

So today I discussed few best and easiest methods on how to remove shortcut virus from PC or Pen drive. After reading this guide you will be able to remove shortcut virus from pen drive.
Share these best methods with your friends.