How to Remove Shortcut Virus From Pendrive / USB Drive

     Pendrive, SD Cards or Flash drives are very common device to transfer data from one computer to another, also sometimes we get errors while connecting Pendrive to Computer and during data transfer one of them is Shortcut Error, basically, this is a Virus known as Shortcut virus, it converts every file into shortcut in Pendrive / Hard drive, this article will guide you to remove shortcut virus from your flash drive as well as computer.

What is Shortcut Virus and How does it Spread.

When we connect a flash drive to an infected computer and transfer any file it automatically infect Pendrive and all files shown as Shortcut. This virus can affect any external storage like Flash Drives, External Hard disk, Phone Memory, Memory card or any Memory Stick, this is an anonymous malware which initially released online and spreading from one computer to another and we got Shortcut of files which are in USB drive if you try to open any file you will get error message.

You Can See How Files are Showing in Removable Disk (D:)

How to Remove Shortcut Virus From Pendrive / USB Drive.

  If your USB drive doesn’t have important files you can try to Format it, but if it contains important files then you are not going to format it, to Remove Shortcut Virus follow the Steps Below.

Step 1. Go to Start and Search for cmd, as  it appears in start menu Right Click on it and Click “Run as Administrator“

Step 2. Navigate to Flash Drive by typing its letter. [ Let’s Say it is i ], to find your USB drive letter open “My Computer” and check for letter, type i: and hit enter.

Step 3. Type ” del *.lnk ” (without quote) in cmd window and Hit Enter on your Keyboard.

Step 4. Now type ” attrib -s -r -h *.* /s /d /l ”  ( without quote ) and hit Enter .

It will take few seconds to recover all your files, Now open your Flash Drive you will get Back all of your files.

How to Remove Shortcut Virus from Computer.

  Once you recover files into USB drive you can use them but if you again plug in USB Flash drive into the infected computer your flash drive will infect again, so it is better to remove the source of this virus i,e infected the computer, follow the steps below to remove shortcut virus from the computer.

Step 1. First open Task Manager by pressing Ctrl + Alt + del Or Right Click on the taskbar and click on Task manager.

Step 2. Go  to Process tab and look for process Wscript.exe, Scroll down and find any such process, Now Right Click on it and Click on End Task.

Step 3. Now go to Start and search for “regedit“, open it you will get Registry Editor navigate to

HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/Run

Here look for Registry Key “odwcamszas” if  found then right-click on it and delete this registry key.

 This will remove Shortcut Virus from your Computer, if not then try these steps.

1.  Press windows + R key, you will get Run box, type %temp% here and hit OK, now temp folder will be open look for file nkvasyoxww.vbs and delete it.

2.

Goto C:\Users<username>\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup. 

Check Startup folder if nkvasyoxww.vbs exist here then delete it.

3. Press Windows + R key, type “msconfing” into the run dialog box and hit OK, it will open System Configuration, Go to Startup tab, and look for nkvasyoxww.vbs uncheck it from startup and hit OK.

There may be a different name for the VBS file, just make sure you don’t have any file with an unusual name and VBS extension at the startup, registry, and temp folder.

In Windows 8, Open Task Manager and go to Startup tab, disable nkvasyoxww.vbs from here.