6 Years later and this Tutorial has saved my 1 year photos and videos edits. I felt like I had lost everything. God Bless you Sir ❤️

I try to learn how to do some of these things myself, but that is probably one of the most complicated set of instructions I have ever heard. I just want to remove the short cut virus from my usb. I'll just buy a new one!

I tried this procedure. it will be very useful and my pendrive doesn't have shortcut virus now.. thank you for whoever uploaded this.

Really useful men. For those who just want to see the file that you put into your USB. Tools --> ... as he said and when you see the hidden files you click on the one that has no name, then you'll see your files

Almost 9 years later and this helpes me . Thanks man❤

Yes I have done it by seeing this video in 1st 1 minute 55 secs, and applying it to my computer. Best Solution to open Short cut- effected file in your pendrive. then copy your urgent files from pendrive to your pc. problem solved. thank you very much.

I got this from one of the sites and it worked for windows 8.1, remember cmd should be opened with administrator.. This is a problem with your file structure, your USB stick was probably hit by a virus. - Scan the USB drive and make sure it's clean - Go to Computer and check your USB drive letter path (example F) - Go to Start > Run > type "cmd" in the box (without quotes) - In the command prompt type the following line: attrib -h -r -s F:*.* /s /d Where F can be replaced by your driver letter. Check if it works and the folders are back to normal. If so, you can delete the shortcuts.

Hello - thank you so so so much. I thought I had lost all of my podcast recordings and data for my relationship podcast shows, but thanks to your suggestion I got them all back. With Love and GRATITUDE thank you Have a great new year.

in Win 10 just go to folder options and click (show hidden folders) and unclick (hide protected system files) no u will be able to see your folder in pendrive (its the one with no name)

Thanks..have searched the net a lot...n you came as a Savior after so many ways i tried to solve the problem

thank u bro it works i tried many others but only your trick work very nice keep it up Regards from Afghanistan

thank u sir i follow your instruction and found my whole data safe and secured , u r THE MAN in the world

Now I don't need the run command.I did it successfully. Thank you very much!:)

Thanks a lot. My shortcut virus infected hidden files are recovered by watching and following the instructions of this video.

hey men if you still active i salute you for this i fix my Flash drive thanks to you bro salute you and i back my flashdrive files thanks again :D big LIKE FOR THIS :D you save my time and life xD

Life is too short to do this.

That was really cool. Its actually good removing it ourselves rather than depending on other software to remove it which inturn might bring other virus. Very well explained

you saved my entire school term project

I have the windows 8 and the steps you have given cannot be followed. Please make a tutorial to remove this virus in windows 8. Thanks.

Thanks. It really helped me save my data. I haved searched hundreds of ways but none except this reaaly helped. Can you please show ways to stop it in windows 8.1? Would be a real great help. Thank you once again.

Thanks bro I m just frustrated from this problem and finally its solved..😊

Very nice step by step very meticulous, thank you great video

I'm using windows 8.1. I'm not able see the file you showed up there in the video. Please suggest.

Thank u thankk thankkkkkkk u soooo much mje bilkul ni ata ta comp use karna i am a girl but apki waja se mer imp data agya thank u so muchhhhh am so happy fst tim i use this and i recovr all my data ho god

could u please redo this tutorial for windows 8.1....really need it

thank u very very much because i had important files in it .it was not opening from ur video i got my files back and thank u once again

really helped me..!!! thank you brother you saved my data!!!

I couldn't follow. When you said go to tools, did you right-click it? Why I don't have tools in my windows 10?

Thanks..\Your method is different from others and very use full ..thanks once again...

problem solved..............awesome tutorial with nice explanation

alternative solution: prevention is better than cure... so to be protected at the first hand so that the virus don't affect ur pc install usb disk security, that's the prevention now for the cure, i had tried this process on my computer and my friend too and it worked succesfully, hope it works on ur pc too guyz... first open the infected usb drive from ur pc then select all the visible files and folders(make sure... show all hidden files is activated) then press delete button... this moves all your files to the recycle bin... then empty the recycle bin... say good bye to the shortcut virus :D this might work for sure (y).. best of luck

Thank you ! I had 60gb of images and videos. This really helped !

Thank you Boss, this video helped me out to recover the data from, Usb , God Bless you.

@Nishant Raj for Windows 7. Go to ORGANIZE at the top-leftside then you'll see FOLDER AND SEARCH OPTIONS. Now you can just follow the steps in the video..

THX THX THX THX THX THX YOU RESCUED MY DATA WITH THIS SIMPLE TRICK THX A LOT DUDE GREAT JOB KEEP IT UP :)))))

Really it was useful to me .thanks so much one of my important photos gone after seeing u vedio I got back thanks a lot ... I done a great job thank uuuuuuuuuu

thanks for the video. i will try it on my class pc win 7 which also cause this shortcut on usb. good thing it appear all virus files so i can follow your tutorial

When I did this, my shortcut files that I wasn't able to open got removed and none of my files actually came back, so there is nothing on my usb. Can you help me fix it?

I can't find the wuaudt.exe file in my task manager

or just try this works for me Now click on Start --> Run In Run box, type cmd and hit Enter Now command prompt will appear, in command prompt type the drive letter of your pen drive and hit Enter. Example type E: After that, type attrib -s -h /s /d *.* then press ENTER.. wait for some time.. then open ur pendrive folder without any problem

Good Day Sir, I'm using windows 7 and I can't find the file you named at the Task Manager. Can you help me?

bro plzz help me i have two antivirus gauard macfee and f secure but nithere of then cannot be open and iam havving that damn problem. and in temp folder there are lot of files with 0kb thank you any help

i m having this problem but this shortcut virus don't show up in my pen drive usually . is this a big threat need to be fixed . will it harm if i connect hard to my pc

When I turned "protected operating system file" off, my flashdisk logo appeared and its' open normally. I can backup the files then format my disk. It's becomes normal.

thanks alot dudz... it works very good.. nice video tutorial..keep it up!!..

very nice...thanks for detailed demo....thank u very much

dude you saved me from buying another usb

THANK YOU VERY MUCH YOU SAVED MY PROJECT AND MY LIFE THANKS A LOT!!!!!!!!! OMG THANK YOU!!!!!

dont go that inner for showing hidden filez you can goto search option and type . you find the hidden files and goto open folder location u can find your hidden files

thank you so much...it is very useful,i got my important data back

tq for sharing. yr explaination its really help me a lot. love from malaysia.

thanks a million... you saved my professional life...

i have a windows 7 laptop and got the similar virus but never found the file you named in the task manager i need quick help pls.thanks

What was the exact Run command sir?After denying, in Run command.Please tell.

I m so much helpful...Tnnx techno... So much bcoz my data returns

My logic, so shortcut virus looks like a "zip file" which is compressed, but this shortcut virus hides the data/photos, for example your original stored data is 1.25 gigabytes, making it 1 kb, which is way smaller than your original stored data, this is ridiculous. But the zip file is compressed, just making the data smaller so it will save up space

I found the trustedinstaller on almost every process, not in the temp tho. Should I go ahead and neutralize each and every one of them?

You Are Truly amazing Buddy.....You Are A life saver.....

that really saved my data with ur useful supported video ThankQ so much

THANKS!! It worked perfectly, but mine virus was named something like '' whost.exe '' can't remember now exactly cause it's gone :DD You're the man!

after recovering the hidden files from my pendrive...i just formatted it...the pendrive shortcut does not appear....what should i do to be completely sure that the usb virus has been completely removed?

There is no this type of virus, but when i insert the pen drive all folder are hidden and showing one mark with 1 KB (as your video), how to remove that from my computer

Thanks for help, my virus however took the process name msiexec. I searched both msiexec and trustedinstaller, changed permissions then deleted all along with their mui (prefetch)

thanks.. solved my pen drive shortcut problem.

i couldn't find temp file in c: and the .exe file you showed in task manager. please advise.

Give us a call if the software doesn't help. We've been doing data recoveries since 2003 and can probably handle anything

this error can be caused by unplugging a removable storage device such as an external USB drive while the device is in use or by faulty hardware such as hard drive or cd-Rom drive that is falling make sure any removable storage is properly connected and then restart your computer this what my laptop saying

I tried your process but unfortunately its didn't work for me. After reboot when I plug the pen drive, first time it didn't show any thing. After few minutes all the same

wow great. i follow the instructions then all my files are gone. can i still recover my lost file?

sir my is windows xp when i opened my hard disk folders in it are changed to shortcuts when opening it is saying '505040.exe' that this short cut refers to has been changed/moved so shortcut can not work properly do you want to delete (yes /no)? please help me..

Thank u my dear....! its very imp input....!

When insert my pendrive and open it I found only a shortcut but there are files and the kaspersky antivirus shows no virus detected !!

ok. i cant see temp folder on c disc at all. there is no wuauclt process in task manager. i cant even find trustedinstaller anywhere.i have found wuauclt file in windows/system32. i have changed properties. and denied it all. and removed trustedinstaller from list.and it still wont work

i found the file cau... but after disbling window updates it is not visible in task manager only the file named winlogon is visible so what to do now????????????????

I didn't find this trusted installer thing.. as well as that other thing since from day one i chose never check for updates.. My flash drives all turned shortcut mode on my friend's laptop and I had to format one, then her laptop killed it again.. as for my laptop it did this like 3 times but never again.. and it did it from one port.. one port would make it into shortcut and the other would not turn it into shortcut and would open the shortcut... however now i have 5 flashes that went into my friend's laptop only to become shortcuts and my laptop won't open any of them.. though searching with the * shows that stuff on them.. but everything would be out of folder and annoying.. I want the shortcut thing to either disappear or open... So what am I to do?

Hi, please, this "wuauclt,exe" she don't show up in my task manager... can you help?

Thank you for this video!! You saved my life!

The thing you said about w***** under the Processes in the Task Manager was not found in my P.C. Please help.

after locating the file ( wuauclt ) on my (system 32) folder, how to change the properties of the file and its administration while I am using windows XP cus I can't see the option SECURITY after clicking the properties ?

hi! I'm using windows 8.1 and i couldn't find wuauclt.exe and there's nothing like trustedInstaller in temp folder and the windows update script is not running and there's no option like properties with it. i hope you'll help me get rid of this coz this thing is driving me crazy update:after reading the comments, i came to know that this doesn't work with windows 8.1 so, is there any other work around for it?

Could you please tell me, how could I reset all the settings that I've changed? I followed your instructions but it does't seemed to have worked for me. When I open my USB, it is empty, but the storage says that it has files inside so I always use cmd to see the files. But I just want to reset all the settings especially in the properties of exe files that is located in System32.

I followed your instructions and everything was working smoothly until I found out that there is no 'OWNER' option in 'WUAUCLT PROPERTIES.'

I cant even find out how to make mistakes lmao

Great video, man! Thx a lot! Much appreciated!

Hi I tried but am not finding the option wuauclt to remove virus. However I could see "Trusted installer" could you please help me out here further I really need this now. I tried even through CMD but for me its showing access denied. So kindly guide me from here. Thanks

Excellent Video Thank You Very Much

Thank you technomath information was very usefull for me

Thank you very much , it works fantastically

Brother thank for this amazing video I sort out my problem

its very useful bro.. thanks techno math

Hi I need your help I got this virus and I deleted all the virus after restart I lost all my data but the HDD is still full I change the attribe it show all the empty folders also but I lost my data can you help me please?!

if i connect pen drive showing shortcut

here i need your help asap. i have shortcut virus in my p drive. and what i did which u showed on step one that show hidden files and uncheck box. what is visible after doing this is a folder without name. upon opening that folder i can see all my file under it. what i am currently doing is copying everything and formatting the USB drive. so my question is is this good thing or bad ? is virus still inside my pc or formatting the usb solve it permanently? plz help.

Thank you very much!!!!!!!!!!!! This is very important........... Thanks again....!!!!! (Y)

Does this virus spread from drive to pc or does it just infect the usb when inserted into the infected machine? reason i ask is because it has infected our network and i cant trace which machine has this virus. i also do not find "wuauclt" and i am using win7

Why the shortcut is created automatically and plz tell the permanent solution plz sir

Hi in windows 10 the exe file you mention cannot see.please can you do another tutorial with windows 10. I really want to recover my flash docs

i am also do as your video but not show owner option.....only 3 option shows premissions, auditing, effective access how to fix it .....plz reply

Dear i have completed my 50% process n i have found data but that folder is hidden and in options there is no option for non-hide that folder i have windows XP

Very useful, Great Work.