Free Shortcut Virus Removal Software/

Shortcut Virus

A shortcut virus is an annoying malware that infects your computer's hard drive, USB flash drives, portable drives, and SD cards. The virus spreads to other devices when an infected storage device is connected to them. Your computer will also be infected if you run an .exe file that contains the virus. True to its name, the shortcut virus hides all the files in an infected partition or hard drive and replaces them with shortcuts that have the same filenames. When you open one of these shortcuts, the virus replicates and further infiltrates your storage device.

Not only is this virus annoying, it could be spying on your personal information from your computer or storage device, so it's essential to remove the shortcut virus as soon as possible. Luckily, you can use built-in Windows software to recover files from the shortcut virus for free and without causing permanent damage.

Free Shortcut Virus Remover

There are several third-party software products out there with the same objective, but the best and quickest shortcut virus remover that's free and already on your Windows computer is the Command Prompt (CMD). By specifying the drive letter, you can delete shortcut virus files from any drive on your computer, be it a hard disk drive, USB flash drive, pen drive, SD card, or any storage device connected to your PC, all in one go.

Remove Shortcut Virus

Shortcut virus is annoying as it can attach itself to the system startup process. Hence, apart from using a CMD Shortcut Virus Remover to delete the virus files, you also need to check your registry to terminate those processes, or the virus might reappear. The removal process goes as follows:

It is essential to remember that the virus spreads to any storage device connected to an infected machine. You must first remove the shortcut virus files from the infected external storage devices through the Command Prompt before cleaning the internal hard disk.

1. Removing Shortcut Virus Using CMD

Step 1: Right-click the Start button and select Command Prompt (Admin).

If prompted, log in using an administrator account and password.

Step 3: Type in attrib -h -r -s /s /d D:\*.* and press “Enter.” (Replace D: with the letter of the drive where the virus is located.)

Step 4: Type del autorun.inf and press the Enter key.

If it was infected by another virus, the autorun.inf file might have been replaced with the extension of that particular virus, such as *.ink, *.exe, or *.vbm. Delete these suspicious files. You should now be able to access your data normally on the storage device, free of shortcut viruses.

2. Remove Shortcut Process from the Registry

If your USB drive is the only infected device, you can skip this step. However, scanning your computer can give you peace of mind that no viruses are lurking on it.

Step 1: Press Windows+R and type regedit to open the Registry Editor.

Step 2: Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run.

Step 3: Look for any suspicious filenames on the list. Search for the name of any virus programs that you see, and delete known malware. Be careful not to delete any important non-virus programs.

• Shortcuts viruses often infect the programs that run on startup, so check there too:

Step 4: Press Win + R, type msconfig, and click “OK”.

Step 5: In the Startup tab, allow only trusted applications and antivirus software to start up.

Step 6: Restart your computer.

3. (Optional) Use antivirus software to clean up any remaining Quikcure remnants

While antivirus software typically won't remove the shortcut virus on its own, it will ensure that there are no vestiges of the virus on your computer. Download and install an antivirus program to scan your Windows computer. Some work better with certain hardware configurations, so feel free to try out a few if you'd like. Here's a list of recommended antivirus programs for removing the shortcut virus:

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Additional: Restoring Files After Removing Shortcut Virus

During the process of removing shortcut viruses from your computer or external storage device, you might have accidentally deleted some non-virus files. Check your device for any missing files or folders. Manually searching an entire hard drive for a couple of lost files is a tedious and error-prone task.

To resolve this issue, you can use the Data Recovery Wizard tool to search for lost files on your drive. The Data Recovery Wizard thoroughly scans the disk's data contents to find any information lost due to virus attacks, deletion, or formatting. You can download a free trial to see if it can recover your missing files.

If you've only lost a few files, you can recover them for free. The free version allows you to recover up to 2 GB of data and preview an unlimited number of files to check their quality. For unlimited recovery, use the Data Recovery Wizard Pro tool.

Step 1: Select the virus-infected disk to be scanned

Run an anti-virus file recovery software on your Windows computer. Select the virus-infected disk and scan for lost or hidden files. Please note that:

• If the virus has hidden or deleted files on your hard drive, it's best to install the software on a different partition or external USB drive so that you don't overwrite any data.
• If the infected device is an external hard drive, flash drive, or memory card, it doesn't matter if you install the software on a local disk of your computer.

Step 2: Review all scan results

The "Data Recovery Wizard" will immediately start scanning the virus-infected hard drive to find the deleted or hidden files. To quickly locate the needed files, you can use the "Filter" or "Group by Type" feature to display only images, videos, documents, emails, and so on.

Step 3: Preview and Recover Deleted/Hidden Files

Once the scan is finished, you can preview the files that were found. Select the ones you need and click the “Recover” button. Save the recovered files to a different secure location on your computer or storage device instead of the original spot where they were lost.