How to Remove Shortcut Virus From Pendrive/USB

Today's article is about how to remove shortcut virus from computer/laptop, pendrive or any other external storage devices. Day to day, there are thousands of viruses created and spread through, actually I don't know from where viruses are created, because today creating virus program is not only limited to hackers system. Even many programmers and developers have started to write codes for virus programs. So we can't point off the topic; the origin of virus within a circle. Mostly, they spread these new types of virus files through internet. Likewise, shortcut virus is too being created in this manner in recent times.

Shortcut viruses mostly travel one computer to another through pendrives. The pendrive is the most common storage device to transfer data between two or more computers. If you attach a shortcut virus infected pendrive with your computer to transfer any data, there is a huge space created for shortcut virus to attack your computer too. Shortcut viruses are not limited to pendrive it also attack your PC hard disk, memory card and other portable storage devices. Once your computer hard disk or other storage device affected with shortcut virus, then the headache starts! When you try to access any files or folder in a shortcut virus affected storage device, the Windows will show you an error message as "shortcut missing".

Many people panic about this virus and they think that they have lost all their data in the particular affected device. It's all because, many antivirus software fails to detect and delete the shortcut virus. Actually shortcut virus is a simple virus program which can be removed easily from the affected device. So let's have a look on what is shortcut virus and how to delete shortcut virus permanently.

What is Shortcut Virus

Shortcut virus is a type of anonymous malware program which can hide the original file from the certain storage device and create a fake shortcut file. Shortcut virus can easily affect all kinds of external storage devices such as pendrive/flash drive, memory card, memory stick, external hard disk or any other external storage devices. When you connect any of your external storage device to transfer data with a shortcut virus affected computer, then your external storage device too gets affected with shortcut virus. When we analyse what happens to the data in the storage devices after the shortcut virus attack, we found this.

This is a malware program which mostly spread via online downloads to the computers. When this virus affect a storage device, actually the original files and folders of the device become hidden and fake shortcut icons get created for every files and folders in the same storage device. But the truth is, created shortcut icon does not exist or the shortcut is created with wrong path. That's why when you try to open the shortcut file, Windows show file missing error message. But keep in mind that the hidden files are still saved in the certain storage device.

There are plenty of simple methods that we can use to remove or delete shortcut virus from the affected storage device. Let's have a look on the important and working tricks one by one.

Remove Pendrive Shortcut Virus Using Command Prompt

If your pendrive is affected with shortcut virus program and if all your important files appear with shortcut icons, then you can try to remove the virus file manually from your pendrive. Follow my given below steps to recover the pendrive from shortcut virus using command prompt.

• Insert the affected pendrive to computer
• Check the pendrive letter in My Computer - Example Tec-Glitz (F:)
• Now open Command Prompt with Administrative mode
• Navigate the pendrive letter in cmd as shown in the below screenshot. For example type f:and hit Enter
• Then type attrib -h -r -s /s /d f:\*.* and hit Enter ("f" should be replaced with your pen drive letter)
• Or type attrib F:\*.* /d /s -h -r -s and hit Enter ("F" should be replaced with your pen drive letter)

That's all. Now close the cmd and restart your PC once. Then go to the shortcut virus affected drive. Now all the hidden files will turn into normal and you can access them anytime. Also don't forget to delete the shortcut files and folders in the drive, created by malware program.

Remove PC/Laptop Shortcut Virus Using .Bat File

We can easily remove the shortcut viruses from Windows computers and laptops using a .bat file trick. Keep in mind that you can also use the above given cmd trick to clean the viruses from PC. But when all your hard drives are affected with the virus attack, then the .bat file trick is much better than above given cmd trick. If you want to clean the viruses from all the drive using cmd trick, you have type the commands separately for each drive and that's gonna be a waste of your precious time. So lets see how to clean the shortcut viruses from PC and laptop through the .bat file trick.

• Open a Notepad
• Copy the following lines onto the notepad

@echo off

attrib -h -s -r -a /s /d C:\*.*
attrib -h -s -r -a /s /d D:\*.*
attrib -h -s -r -a /s /d E:\*.*
attrib -h -s -r -a /s /d F:\*.*
attrib -h -s -r -a /s /d G:\*.*
attrib -h -s -r -a /s /d H:\*.*
attrib -h -s -r -a /s /d I:\*.*
attrib -h -s -r -a /s /d J:\*.*
@echo complete.

• In the above command, hard disk drive letters are mentioned in red color. Replace the letters with your virus affected hard drive letters
• Now save the file in the desktop with the name VirusRemover.bat (.bat is must)
• Then close the notepad and Double Click on saved file in the desktop

That's all the settings for .bat file trick. Now go to the shortcut virus affected drives. Now all the hidden files will turn into normal and you will be able to view them.

Remove PC/Laptop Shortcut Virus Using Windows Registry

This is a little bit advance technique to remove virus from the Windows computer and laptops. If you fail with the above given tricks, then you can try this trick. When your hard disk is affected with the shortcut viruses, we can remove the source of this virus by doing few changes in Windows registry settings in the computer or laptop. Follow my given below steps carefully to succeed in this process.

• Open the Task Manager
• Go to the Processes Tab
• Now look for process Wscript.exe
• If you find this process, just click on End Process

• Now go to Start Menu and search for regedit
• Open the regedit and now you will be able to view Registry Editor
• Now navigate the following path in registry editor
• HKEY_CURRENT_USER >> Software >> Microsoft >> Windows >> CurrentVersion >>Run
• In here, look for the registry entry "odwcamszas"
• If you found that registry key, just Right Click on it and Delete the entry

This process will clean the viruses from your computer. If you're unable to find the above given registry key, then follow the given below method to clean the computer for virus free.

• Open Run box by clicking Windows key+ R key
• In the run box, type %temp% and click on OK
• Now temp folder will appear
• In temp folder, look for nkvasyoxww.vbs file. If you find this file, just Right Click on it and Delete it
• Then go to following path in your Windows computer

• C:Users >> Double Click on User Account Name >> AppData >> Roaming >> Microsoft >> Windows >> Start Menu >> Programs >> Startup
• Now check the startup folder and if a file exist named nkvasyoxww.vbs, then delete it

• Again open the Run box by clicking Windows key+ R key
• Type msconfig and click on OK
• Now System Configuration window will appear
• In this, go to Startup Tab and look there for kvasyoxww.vbs 
• If you find this file there, disable it by selecting Uncheck
• Finally, click Apply and click on OK

If you are a Windows 8 user, then you have to follow the given below steps to do this

• Open Task Manager
• Go to Startup Tab
• Now you can find kvasyoxww.vbs file
• Just click on it and select Disable as shown in the below screenshot

Like I said, the above given trick is a little bit advance for the beginners, but I believe all the tech geeks might love this trick. If you're a beginner, then follow my next step, which can help you to clean the shortcut viruses using any of the remover tools from PC and laptops.

Best Shortcut Virus Removal Tools

Free Shortcut Remover

This is an awesome free tool which can identify and remove all the broken shortcuts in your computer. This tool allows you to clean all the shortcut files from the PC within a click. Also Free Shortcut Remover tool can identify and delete the viruses at the very first stage i.e. when you insert an affected pendrive to the computer. You can download and find more product information here.

USB Disk Security

USB Disk Security is another awesome tool to protect your computer and laptops from shortcut viruses and other kind viruses and malware programs too. This tool provides high security to the computer system from all the malicious programs and fight against threats when you use pendrives in computer. You can find more information about the product and download the tool here.

Final Words

In this article, I have mentioned all the tricks to detect and delete shortcut virus from your pendrive, PC, laptop and other media storage devices. I hope you guys like these tricks. In the beginning of the article, I have given all the manual tricks to recover the affected files and folders from the hard disk and pendrive. In case, some people don't like manual processes and waste their time, then they can go on with the recovery tools which I have covered just above the final words. But if you lose any important data from your pendrive or other storage devices due to shortcut virus, then you must follow the manual tricks to recover the affected files and folders safely.

If you just want to secure your computer from pendrive virus attacks, then I highly recommend you to go with USB Disk Security tool. This is an awesome tool to detect and delete most of the pendrive viruses. I'm using USB Disk Security tool since last 2 years and never felt disappointment with this tool.