How to Remove Shortcut Virus permanently (2022)

InternetHow to Remove Shortcut Virus permanently (2022)

Must Read

I received this question from Many of my Readers and wrote the easiest way to Remove Shortcut Virus from any Pendrive or PC. Having some important files in your Pen drive and when you found those files turned into shortcuts, It will be really Shocking, I’ll write out the different possible solutions to remove these shortcut virus and hopefully one of them will work for you.

Remove Shortcut Virus from PC 2022

I have come up with 3 different solutions (updated 2018) to remove shortcut virus from pen drive, a Shortcut virus Remover tool (Checkpoint 3) and what if the problem is with your PC? You can find a solution at the end to recover your PC too.

What is A Shortcut Virus? (Skip this if you don’t want to know)

Shortcut virus is a virus which Enters into your Pen drive, PC, Hard Disk, Memory cards or mobile phone and changes your files into shortcuts with the original folder icons.Featured-image-shortcut-virus

When you Plugin your Pen drive in Your friend’s Shortcut Virus affected PC or when you insert your Friends virus infected USB to your Computer, You may get this virus too. Be cautious before Pairing devices, I have seen this problem in PC having antivirus too.  Below are the 4 best Methods to Delete this Shortcut Virus.

Methods to Remove Shortcut Virus from Pendrive:

  1. Use WinRAR.
  2. Remove Shortcut Virus using CMD (Command Prompt),
  3. Shortcut Virus Remover

    Bonus Tip: Free Antivirus Software – Top 7 (Updated)

1. Use WinRAR to Getting Original Files

  • Open WINRAR Application.
  • Navigate to your Pen drive location or PC Folder location.
  • Copy Files and Paste where you want.
  • Format your Pen drive.

Try searching “WinRAR” in your Windows PC, If you can’t find the software, then download it from WinRAR (Trialware), WinRAR is a File Archive Software for Windows, you can use this software even to access files inside your Windows PC,

When you open a file using WinRAR no other process will run inside this, Virus being a process won’t get executed inside this software, hence you could find all your files when you open your Pendrive using WinRAR

2. Remove Shortcut virus using CMD

Here are the Steps to Remove the Shortcut virus using CMD, Using Command Prompt to remove a virus and recover files is the best way and there are more Possibilities for virus removal. This Method Removes Shortcut virus from Pen drive, Memory cards, PC, Hard disk, and even Mobiles. Just follow the steps given below

  • Go to Start -> Run -> cmd.
  • Go to your pen drive memory cards or mobile phone directory.
  • Type attrib -h -r -s /s /d e:*.* (Where e is the Drive Label )
  • And then press Enter.

Remove-Shortcut-Virus-cmd

There are chances for these two Errors,

The solution for Attrib is not a recognized command
The solution for Access denied for attrib command

Note: After when you got your files, just copy your files somewhere

3. Shortcut Virus Remover

 When Command prompt codes end up with no result, we can try Shortcut Virus Remover tool, Since Shortcut virus is just a process, one can easily find the process running on the PC, You can find and remove the process, or use the tool given below to remove the process.

you could find the “Wscript.vbs” file in Task Manager under process, and also here is a software to remove the file in seconds Shortcut virus remover

Remove Shortcut Virus in Your PC

When you successfully removed the Shortcut virus and when you re-inserted the Pendrive, again when you got to see those shortcut folders, then the problem is with your PC.

Now you can use Antivirus to remove the shortcut virus in your PC, Avast is one of the best Shortcut Virus Remover. Just Install Avast Antivirus and do a Boot Time Scan, following this will remove all the virus in boot Time.

Follow this Video to Remove Shortcut Virus Permanently

 Precautions to Avoid Shortcut Virus:Remove Shortcut virus
Following are the Precautions to be taken to avoid Shortcut virus from Entering into your personal devices,
  1. Disable Autorun, So that Pendrive won’t runs automatically
  2. Scan for virus and then use the Pendrive,
  3. Don’t use Pendrive in Public PC’s
  4. Don’t use Harmful websites
  5. Keep your Antivirus up to date

Show your feedback in Comments below.

160 COMMENTS

  1. Hi Thomas, I’ve been annoyed by the shortcut virus and I tried the methods you list, they all work well, thanks!

  2. Whenever i transfer files from computer to pendrive automatically pendrive shortcut created in it. Please help me i have tried all the solutions

  3. I did this, all the shortcuts disappear, as well as all my files. Could you please help me, what can I do know?

  4. I can’t remove the virus, I tried 1000 ways, but when I open my drive over again, the virus is still here. Can you help me, please?

  5. While I interest a pen drive to a laptop all files are changes to shortcuts.. and also funny videos.exe . How to solve this problem?

  6. Thanks Dude .. its really works … i was formatted my pendrive number of times to remove that blody virus bt i couldn’t .. by ur past i was tried and its works .. really thanks for this idea. ..

  7. Hello, I am using win8, When I open Removable drive, Just main folder and files are showing shortcut.
    After that when I open it there is no showing any shortcut. (It’s mean sub folder and files are OK)
    Kindly resolve above mentioned problem.

  8. the yyncsiwkgz.vbs appeared with my actual file and the shortcut file. i formatted my drive and transferred my file to the drive again but the shortcut appeared again

  9. I am happy this could solved my problem and the method works perfectly well. Thanks to all those who came out with this solution.

  10. Followed all instructions carefully but the files are now inaccessible, I only see the shortcuts but they can’t open.. Can I restore the links that I took out in the directories are in your first instruction. Thanks

  11. I have N8 with internal memory 16 GB.When i plugged in my pc then it got affected and when i use above solution shortcut removed but after one day files converts again into .lnk. Again i use CMD after one day same problem appear.PLEASE GIVE ME A PERMANENT SOLUTION FOR REMOVING TOTALY .lnk From PC,pen drive, mmc,mobile plz plz give me 8875088344

  12. Hello, thanks for this another good information against viruses, specifically, the shortcut virus. In my part, I did remove it through this cmd command “attrib d:*.* /d /s -h -r -s” … please take note, without quotes

  13. If nothing works use this :
    Shortcut Virus :

    1.Must end process of WSCRIPT.EXE !!!
    2.Open CMD: and type: attrib -h -r -s /s /d H:*.*
    H( name of drive )
    3.Then delete extra weird files

  14. hi
    by following the above procedure i hav lost all my files too
    they are quite a lot important for me
    so please help me to recover them

  15. After when you got your files, just copy your files somewhere in your PC and format your drive and then copy again your files to the drive. Only then your shorcut virus will get off from your PC…!

  16. hello i’m having the same problem! its just that my pc is infected with it because if i put a good pendrive as well! it turns into shortcuts.

    • After when you got your files, just copy your files somewhere in your PC and format your drive and then copy again your files to the drive…! Only then your shorcut virus will get off from your PC

  17. Hi.I downloaded the application and using it to delete all the files in my pendrive. But just within few second all the files reappear. I scan my computer too but it stated no shortcut virus found.
    What should I do? I followed your steps and insert command in cmd as well. Yet it doesn’t make any changes.
    I can actually open all my files but all the files are still with the shortcut icon. And when i plug in other pendrives, they get infected as well. Need your help!! I really dont know what else can I do anymore to get rid of all those annoying shorcut virus.

  18. Hi. I downloaded the application and using it to delete all the files in my pendrive. But just within few seconds all the files reappear! I scan the whole computer but it stated no shortcut virus found.
    I tried follow your steps and insert the command in cmd as well. but its doesnt make any changes.
    What should I do?I can actually open my files now.but the files are still with shortcut icon and when other pendrive plug in,will get infected as well. Dont know what can I do now. Need your help!

    • After when you got your files, just copy your files somewhere in your PC and format your drive and then copy again your files to the drive…! Only then your shorcut virus will get off from your PC

  19. My netbook got infected but the application dosen’t worrk… everytime i insert a removable dsik it always gets infected what shoul i do?

  20. I followed the same steps as for pendrive by typing the path of the folder which is actually on my desktop. all the shotcuts were deleted and I lost all files !!!

  21. not satisfied with the solution the shortcuts will be created each and every time i copy to my pen drive or memory card..
    all commands are given correctly

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

Latest Posts

The Benefits Of The Right Security For Your Business Platform

The Internet and the use of it has grown dramatically over the past decade but unfortunately with all of...
Henry Richardsonhttps://www.waftr.com
Henry loves to Blog, share his Internet knowledge, helping computer newbies, and make money online.