I have the same issue, and didn’t notice any problems until after I upgraded to 1.5.0.17.
64 bit, quad core, 12 GB ram, and I can just watch the free RAM drain away until I have none left in a few hours. This is with the drive unplugged. I don’t want to plug it back in since I am considering the latest backup as an archive until I activate another internal drive and move files around.
What really bothers me is I just ordered a 1TB Passport to cover the new 1TB internal drive.
Double trouble with these things. I can’t ask my wife (primary user) to do anything “tech-y”.
I downloaded and upgraded my version to 1.5.0.17. The moment I start it, it crashes immediately. I get a box and ask me to send or don’t send info.
I tried to uninstall the previous version. I managed to remove WD Smartware but not the drive manager. I did a reinstall of 1.5.0.17, but it continues to crash.
I think the most funniest thing about WD Smartware is even when the drive is not plugged in, it consumes so much CPU at start up and then consistently takes up high CPU usage. Hello? The drive is not plugged in!!! It’s ridiculous!
I have been in IT for more than 2 decades from development to management and I have never seen such a crappy piece of software throwing to customers. I will never use another WD product again. How could WD not know the problems b4 thowing this ■■■■ to customers? The problems are so obvious.
WD sells its removable HDs at a premium (12+%) because it says it comes with software. So, its customers pay for this crappy software and cant really use it. That’s cheating on its customers.
Well, for other users, after i have disabled the WDFME and WDRulesEngine, my desktop runs like new. I still run the WD drive manager and status manager so I can use the password control and remove the drive.
I’ve been reading this thread for months, experiencing the same issues. Unfortunatily the store I purchased this drive from will not exchange/refund as the hardware appears to work fine. WD, I am quite frankly fed up with this product/software, and would like a manufactures refund. I have decided to return to my old Logitech unit. Can someone from WD please send me information regarding how to initiate the return process?
At this point, I see this as the only solution to the numerous and extensive problems outlined in this and previous threads concerning unacceptable levels of CPU usage.
Since upgrading to SmartWare 1.5.0.17 I have had similar system slow down problems as many other folks have described here. I did not have any complaints, and the backups seemed to be running fine, before installation of the new version. I’m unable to use my computer if SmartWare is running.
Is there an older version of the software available that I can “downgrade” to? Has version 1.5.0.17 made any changes to the backup database such that downgrading would fail?
I have most of the same complaints about the CPU usage. I have had to pull the battery on my laptop 5 times in two days. I am running XP Pro SP3. Once I upgraded to this version, as other posts mention of course it had to recategorize. Once it did recategorize it did not recognize the previous backup. When you start the backup the whole thing freezes up instead of quickly scanning and verifying the existing backup as I would expect. I cannot even open task manager to kill the processes. As all the other custormers are concerned, so am I and with no posts or replies to many of the messages, it sure seems like no one is addressing the CUSTOMER issues. If the issue is not resolved soon, I will NEVER consider WD again. This is a horrible mess.
I am using SmartWare Win Version (for Windows 7 - 32 bit) since one year and half without problems.
I have done the update to 1.5.0.17 version. Once I terminated the installation, I have saw the CPU usage at 100% without apparently reasons. I have started a long investigation in order to understand. I have read the messages within this Community and I have decided to remove SmartWare from my PC.
Now I don’t have anymore the CPU usage at 100% and SmartWare, but I have noted that while WDFME was running the free space on my PC was reducing. I have now about 30 GB less of free space on my internal hard disk C.
Someone knows how I can recover this space from my hard disk drive ?
Seems to be that the uninstall procedure (from Windows Control Panel) remove the product SmartWare, but not the files created for the categorization.
After using 1.5.0.17 in default mode for several weeks, now trying file backup mode. I selected the folders in my C drive and started the backup. It seemed to start backing up ok. Now after many hours, it shows Categorizing files on the home screen. Why is it categorizing files in the File backup mode?
I am not sure how exactly how you lost 30GB of drive space. Did you retrieve any files from your backup?
Quick update for the rest of the thread. The 1.5.1 version should be out very soon (this/next week?) and does have code changes within the backup engine to resolve this issue as reported.
I means that when Smartware is running, my PC free space continues to reduce, I have less than 15GB now and window give warning when less than 30GB of space.
I tried to uninstall the Smartware, but the free space cannot recover.
I did not retrieve any files.
I can uninstall the Smartware and wait for the new version…
BUT THE FREE SPACE PROBLEM IS MUCH MORE IMPORTANT FOR ME NOW!!! PLEASE HELP!!!
Just got my brand new 'Western Digital MyBook Essential 3.0 2TB’ Model:WDBACW0020HBK-00
And followed the installation instructions to a tee.
After updating and installing ‘SmartWare Win Version 1.5.0.17’ noticed problems with the software right away. Tried various things including uninstalling ‘SmartWare Win Version 1.5.0.17’ but was not able to uninstall.
Did a search of the ‘Knowledge Base’ for the message:
"Installation unsucessful (Error Code:1603). Please try again or contact WD support for assistance. "
Well that returned loads of pages each with the word ‘error’ highlighted. Hhhhmmm!!
Tried ‘Advanced search’ instead, and just used the string ‘Error Code:1603’; surely this would get me something relevant?
Nada!
Same again loads of relevant pages returned with the word ‘error’ highlighted. (Scratching head!!)
OK! I’ll try just: ‘1603’ And then I got…
Absolutly nothing!
Sound familiar??
Whats the point of creating error messages that one cannot access information about?
I noticed my internal C: drive HD space being eaten up too.
I am running Windows 7 64 bit. At the time my external WD drive was not plugged in (but WD Smartware still seems to thrash my PC).
It appears that WDFMEService is creating ever increasing etilqs_* files in “C:/Windows/temp” folder. Left unchecked they will grow in size and number until you are completely out of disk space.
I have completely wiped my WD Passport, and have the latest firmware.I uninstalled WDSmartware and re-installed from scratch.I am running Windows 7 Home Premium on an MSI GS660R laptop (i5), with 6GB Ram, 552GB C: drive & 368GB D: drive.No other external drives are attached.
On initial start-up of WDSmartware (no backup option selected, everything default) the CPU usage spikes heavily for about 5 minutes. This appears to be during the ‘categorising your files’ activity. A bunch of etilqs_* files are created in the windows/temp/ folder (about 30mb worth initially, in 5 or 6 seperate files).
As expected, as soon as I start backup (category view, documents only, approx 6GB of data) the CPU spikes heavily at aound 60%. More etilqs_* files begin to appear, and the existing ones start to grow in size. After approx 15 mins the CPU usage settles down at around 25%.
Interestingly, the WD Passport drive seemed to sleep momentarily (I last accessed it about 30 mins previously), as an autoplay window popped up as if I had just plugged it in. This was during the back-up process.
Ok, the process finally stopped, with a ‘partial backup accomplished’ message. 10000 files backed up (an exact number), with 7599 not backed up.
442mb of etilqs_* files created.
As a note, in the worst case (this was a few days ago) I had over 300GB of etilqs_* files in my temp folder. This was what originally highlighted that something was up, as my HD space dwindled significantly.
This appeared to be due to my PC having been on for a few days without a reboot, and me downloading and installing several GB’s worth of data after purchasing games over the STEAM service. As STEAM updates your files slowly over the internet, it may have stressed the WDSmartware software as files where continually being added for a few days at a stretch.
Alternately perhaps a bug in the WDSoftware where it fails to periodically flush those temp files, relying on a reboot to get rid of them? Many users have their machines on 24/7, which would lead to problems.
Note that in the above case I didn’t even have my WD Passport attached. Perhaps that’s part of the issue - the backup software running in the background with no target backup device available.
I’m going to keep an eye on those temp files and CPU usage in general and see if I notice any other patterns.
I decided to try thr ‘Files & Folders’ method of backup rather than categories, and selected several folders on my drives for backup.
Using this method I noticed that only a single new etilqs_* file was created, and it always read as 0 kb.
However, there was an odd discrepancy between the backed up files size (91GB) and the amount that the software reported as ‘copied’ (150GB+). I eventually simply stopped the backup as it appeared to be endlessly copying, even though the folders I had selected were complete.
Even when the backup was stopped, the CPU usage was still hovering around 25%, with occasional spikes.
Ultimately, this is unacceptable for a ‘background’ backup solution, so I have completely removed the software from my system and will be using an alternative. Perhaps I will give it a go again with a future release, but as it stands although the current build does backup my files, it also cripples my system permanently.
