WD SmartWare using too many resources

WD Software & Mobile Apps WD Software
82

What this accomplished, for me at least, was that it removed the entire “Smartware” partition on the drive which contained maybe a couple hundred megabytes of their malware. Now when I plug in the drive I just see an added external mass storage device which I can use to drag/drop files or use any real backup software. The hidden partition is only 1% or so of the storage capacity and that is a small price to pay for this malignant and malevolent pile of user antagonistic applications to be forever buried. The other alternative is to simply reformat the drive, but that is probably time intensive and you might even need special software to clean the entire disk.

It worked for me. YMMV.:stuck_out_tongue:

83

Ok thanks.

So maybe if I disable it, including the password protection, in the way you suggested and then remove the actual ‘Smartware’ software from the laptop that it installed, I should be able to use it like a normal drag and drog drive without having to worry about the stuff thats already on their or drivers etc.

84

Just to add, switched laptop on this morning, WDFME.exe using up to 85% of cpu!!! Not even gone anywhere near it! Crazy!

Will disabling it in the processes hurt anything and will it just switch itself back on after a restart?

85

WDFME.exe indeed taking resource… but in mycase rather than resource hog, it making my drive running 100% thus lagging the system 

just for infomation my system : i7 950 + caviar black 750 + 6GBram

i did try disable WDFME.exe on services

but end up got some trouble, when i restart the pc, mybook become unknown USB device

and won’t show up in explorer

the only things to fix is, to start WDFME.exe … delete the device from system device and reboot the system to force it detect mybook again

i haven’t read all thread, but i wonder people that disabling WDFME.exe on their windows services still can use their mybook ?

i got mybook studio ii 2TB (raid1) and mybook studio 1.5TB

86

THIS IS MY STORY AND FIX:

Problem: WDFME.exe Process Keeps Running

Another problem that has cropped up. wdfme.exe is running and taking 45-65% of the processor. Slows down or halts bootup. I found this through Norton Internet Security Performance, it does not show up on the Task Manager Processes, hidden? Why?

3/1/2011. What I have done:

Stop the backup in WD SmartWare.

Remove the Security Lock in WD SmartWare.

Exit SmartWare.

Go to the task bar’s notification area and eject the Passport.

Unplug the Passport.

Go to Control Panel and Uninstall WD SmartWare.

Note: It appears that WD SmartWare tries to reinstall, when Windows asks to allow your PC to be modified, Say Yes to this. It will take 5-10 minutes.

Note: Sometimes it does not seem to uninstall, and the program is still listed, still shows up under All Programs and icons remain. Processor usage is near 5-10% now. (Reinstall, reboot and uninstall)

If successful the WD SmartWare will not be listed and you will not see any files on the C: drive.

(Files can found in C:\Program Files (x86) under Western Digital, about 27Mb).

Reboot notebook.

Plug in Passport, if SmartWare tries to install, say NO.

Go to Computer and you can see the Passport drive, possibly as G: or H: .

Later you might want to erase or delete files (on Passport) to open space on drive.

Your backup files appear under WD SmartWare.swstor folder.

There is an erase function WD Quick Formatter.exe that has no description in the manual, but may delete all WD software. May not want to delete WD software, maybe need later?

Possible way to use Passport is to use SyncToy to back up changed files from C:\Users to H:(Passport)\Backup1. 65GB took me 1:20 min to copy the first time.

Later use SyncToy to copy H:\Backup1 to H:\Backup2, and then copy C:\Users to H:\Backup1. This gives you a fresh backup and an older one. SyncToy has the mode “Contribute” which adds and updates files but does not delete any from the target folders. For the paranoid people you can also create H:\Backup3, Backup4,…

PS: I did not use Ausologics SpeedBoost suggested by nanquan, nor did I use JV6 suggested by c2biz to uninstall and remove traces of WD SmartWare.

I may look into Cobian Backup suggested by Poddys.

PPS: This seems to be a serious problem because it appears in several threads in this forum (WD Community), you may need to explore several forums/threads to get all the details.

87

I found some other websites with comments and suggestions about the WD drive and “Smartware”:

Here are some videos:

It’s interesting (and also sad) that these problems have been reported since 2009, and the advertising hype that is still presented to the potential buyer is all slick and positive, while I have yet to find a customer review that was anything but negative. This is deceptive advertising in the extreme. Why can’t WD just remove the automatic install of “SmartWare” and just have it as an option for those who dare? Even here, the official line from WD is that this software is designed for the non-technical user to be as simple and fool-proof as possible, and purposely does not allow special tweaks such as backing up files in folders such as “Program Data”. But I think I am “preaching to the choir” here.

Has anyone installed one of these drives and had the software run without problems? Does anyone at WD actually use it and like it? I’m even afraid to use it as an ordinary external drive for backup now, after hearing other stories of the drives crashing or the USB connections failing. This whole debacle would be funny if it were not so stupid, and still causing loss of time and money for so many people who are still buying these drives. How can WD marketing and management allow this customer dissatisfaction to continue? Do they enjoy shooting themselves in the foot?

88

Thanks to all of you who have spent countless hours on this issue. I just bought the 2TB unit seeking mostly the security feature of having a password and did not intend to use any of the backup ware whatsoever. Much to my surprise, my system has more than tripled time require to boot, hung multiple times, failed software update from WD and has frozen, thawed for a moment, then froze again. Upon reviewing the entries in this listing, I can see the problem is pretty much unsolvable at this point.

So, so, sad. Hate to say this, but, it is less than a week old and it is going back! That is the only solution I can see at this point. I can do better with paper and pencil locking data in a file cabinet.

I am absolutely stunned that WD would put out a product like this. Has anyone heard of a software update to increase functionality by DECREASING WD drive involvement?

Best . . .

89

The question asked is whether the Passport/Essential drive can be used after Smartware has been fully uninstalled from the host computer.  The question was asked after Smartware was uninstalled, and the Passport/Essential failed to be detected as a generic USB device.

Eight months ago I nuked Smartware off my computer and off the Essential, rebooted the computer, and after the startup plugged in the drive and the drive would not detect.  After a lot of fidding around, and more reboots, the device was finally recognized and I was able to access it.  The problem was that I found Smartware installed on the host computer.  IMHO, Smartware IS the DRIVER for these devices, and without Smartware they will not be recognized.  Since I had completely removed from the Essential and from Windows/sys32/dllcache/etc. everything and anything that even looked like a WD application, I concluded that the automatic USB plug and play setup must have looked to the Microsoft app archives and installed the driver for the Essential that was found there — Smartware!

I must acknowledged that WD’s moderator STRONGLY DENIED that what I experienced was the case, and I rebutted his contention, but he went away without supplying any information on how to get the device working over a USB connection without VCD/Smartware, etc.  I returned the Essential for a refund shortly after that.  You can find my original posts early in this thread, if they haven’t been deleted by WD (haven’t checked).

My attorney client that purchased a Passport to backup his new workstation laptop, and who didn’t take my advice to disconnect and return the Passport after I had my problems with Smartware, is happy with his new Seagate backup, and the Passport is in pieces somewhere in the high country of Utah after having been used for target practice during a hunting trip.

90

I kill the process and can still access my drive. It comes back when I reboot.

91

the only temporary fix i find is to PROCESS END “WDFME.exe” from task manager as soon as you login to your windows

haven’t tried these but 

in registry editor (regedit)

you can search for “WDFME.exe”

HKEY Local machine → system   → current control set → services → WDFME 

start is 2 … i think 0 for disable … and 1 for manual , not really sure 

seems just same like if you disabling from services.msc… 

well process end is the simplest so far 

1 Like
92

Perhaps I wasn’t clear enough before (Apparently)…

I see quite a few people here making this way more complicated than it really need be!

I had the exact same issue as all of you w/ WDF ME using up all of my memory. You know how I fixed it?

Simple.

Click ‘Start’ (Windows button).

Click ‘Control Panel’.

Under Programs, click on ‘Uninstall a Program’.

Locate ‘WD Smartware’, click on it to highlight it… then right click on it and click on ‘Uninstall’.

That’s it. You’re done.

The lock and everything else on the drive then works as normal. WDF ME is nowhere to be found.

Just don’t re-install ‘Smart-WHERE?’ and you should have no further problems.

93

From my experience, just uninstalling SmartWare from the computer is only temporary and the VCD has an autoplay file in its partition that automatically (re)installs the evil application next time you boot the computer and plug in the drive. The WD article I linked a while back actually changes the firmware so that the partition is not detected when the computer reboots and sets up drive partitions. And this also prevents installation when plugging the drive into a different computer. Here is the specific link for XP, Vista, and Win7.

http://wdc.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/3835

94

i dunno why uninstalling SMARTWARE make both of mybook studio II and mybook studio not detected

it just become unknown device

as some people already mention… SMARTWARE itself actually driver

thats why even you uninstall SMARTWARE … when you reboot it will automatically install its driver (when VCD enabled)

IF you get disabled the VCD… then you might get problem with “unknown device” and can’t access your mybook

95

You might need to go into the Device Manager and uninstall the driver. Then when you plug in the device it should be detected by USB enumeration and the default driver will be installed for the device as an external drive. But if the firmware is screwed up then you might be out of luck. In that case, you might be able to get an external USB drive enclosure with its own interface, and just connect the drive and reformat it. Of course that will be an additional expense. If the drive is still under warranty, you can return it to WD and they will either repair or replace it. You could ask them not to include the SmartWare partition, but good luck with that. With a new drive, you should be able to follow the instructions in the link above to remove the partition from the firmware.

96

HEY WESTERN DIGITAL : YES, YOU GUYS . . .

Why are these incredibly simple issues not resolved?  Why on earth did they become issues in the first place?  Does this forum exist for actual problem solving, or merely entertainment and recreation?  There should be more need for a “community” and a “forum” for a pencil manufacturer than for all the problems and discussions being expressed here — far too many for pioneers in this technology.  We sure could use some real, practical, less-mystifying answers out here, guys.

97

Well, this community was created for Users, like your, to help one another, and to share your experiences and ideas with one another. If you are looking for technical support from WD, you will need to contact them directly.

To Contact WD for Technical Support
http://support.wdc.com/contact/index.asp?lang=en

98

While I fully appreciate that this forum is for user-to-user discussion, there should be some way to alert the product development and marketing teams at WD to the huge numbers of customers who continue to have problems which are not because of improper installation or usage, but because of well-documented and very serious problems with the software itself. I looked back to the earliest posts about Smartware from 2009, and even then there were many posts where people were having similar problems.

I can say that WD tech support was very helpful, although after almost an hour on the phone, trying all the “usual” fixes, it was finally determined to be a defective drive, and I was able to get a new one at no charge. But after a while I noticed the huge surges of resource usage even when the drive was disconnected, and it was only “fixed” by removing the Smartware and disabling the virtual drive partition.

Even when the backup software had been running for quite a while, it seemed that the backup was incomplete, and then I found out that some folders and some file types were excluded from the backup. It was a good thing that I discovered that before needing to do a restore. I found a post where a method was provided to change the exclusion list, but by then I had removed Smartware because of the resource hogging issue.

It seems incredible to me that WD has not addressed this continuing problem. This forum seems to be used only by customers and moderators who serve only to screen inappropriate posts, and the only suggestion is to contact Tech Support. But from my experience, tech support only serves to guide users through a standard list of troubleshooting tests that most tech-savvy users have already tried. I design and build electronic devices and I write the software that interfaces to them, and I can tell you that I pay close attention to any problems reported by my customers, and I often make the changes needed within a day or at most a week.

But I have a feeling that WD has outsourced the software design and by the time suggestions and defect reports are filtered through many departments, the true nature of the problem has become muddled, and the original software team may have been disbanded and reformed to work on other projects. Also, unfortunately, many software developers have concentrated most of their efforts on visual presentation and “cool” features, while the core functionality is likely to be poorly understood and beyond their abilities to fix.

A backup program is not “rocket science”. There are many ways to implement the process, and it should be simple enough to examine the functionality of other successful backup products to see what works. Apparently the Smartware product was designed to be simple and nearly automatic so that non-technical users might be able to just let it take care of the tedious details, but unfortunately this results in false confidence that all important files can be restored. I have found that is NOT the case, and perhaps the other more obvious problem of system slowdown was a blessing in disguise, since otherwise I might not have noticed the missing files.

99

Unfortunately, us moderators are not tech support, we might provide an advice or recomendation as any other users here, but as you stated, our job here is to enforce the forum guidelines. Also, we escalate many of the issues in here to WD.

WD frequently updates Smartware, many of the initial issues have been resolved, but not all computers are the same. Just to give  you a example, I have used WD Smartware, and this issue that it takes all the resources does not happen on my PC, neither the partial backup. I have not used it that much because I like to do manual backups, as for me it is the most pure and simple backup process, but I try to use all the backup software of my drives just to see if they are good or not; furthermore, I don’t use Smartware as a backup, but I cannot say it is a bad software, it might not be geared for the advanced users, but instead it has been concieved as a basic application for backups.

100

“OXTER,” a moderator says:

“…does not happen on my PC, neither the partial backup. I have not used it that much …”

If the drive “isn’t used,” isn’t exercised using the features advertised for the drive, including continuous backup of files, HOW CAN YOU POSSIBLY KNOW whether there is a problem with the drive ON YOUR COMPUTER???  The people who are having these problems are asking for the drive to do what WD advertises it will do WHEN IT IS HOOKED UP AN TURNED ON.  They DID NOT buy a new backup drive so they could have something pretty sit on their desk unplugged while they continue to do manual backups!!  I do manual backups, too, and semi-automated backups, to a NAS, and two Seagate drives that are rotated into a fire file.  I bought the Essential to do continuous backups, A STATED FEATURE, just like all the other people in this forum.

Maybe the drive/Smartware combination really will do continuous backups, but who can find out???  Hook up one of these drives and there will be NOTHING to be backed-up continuously because the only thing Smartware does continuously is PREVENT you from using the computer for anything other than running Smartware!!!

WAKE UP WESTERN DIGITAL!!!  I sent a SUPPORT REQUEST into the REAL technical support area about this forum six weeks ago, asking whether they were aware of the lack of ANY COGENT assistance from ANY WD related or “approved” source the the many frustrations being expressed.  NO REPLY was received back.  Now, that has NEVER happened before between WD support and me.  Check my earliest posts in this thread: I LOVE WD SUPPORT because when I’ve needed support they’ve provided support above and beyond my expectations, and have earned my loyalty. Now I’m wondering whether that will be true in the future.

I understand that forums are in part intended to unburden the support phone lines, but this thread has become a farce, and it is clear that WD pays absolutely no attention to anything being complained about or being said in this forum.  Moderators respond selectively then disappear.  Now we find out that “Advisors” don’t use the product themselves.  Get real WD.

If you own one of these drives, have any of the problems being described in this thread, don’t waste your time HERE or with the drive.  Try the real technical support if the drive is still in warranty, and you really have a burning desire to burn time, but my EXPERIENCES with these drives and the frustations expressed in this very long thread say, “Return the drive now.”  Move to a NAS, or to one of the several Seagate solutions, the later being preferred by my clients, who are all mobile-professionals.

101

c2biz wrote:

 

 Moderators respond selectively then disappear.  Now we find out that “Advisors” don’t use the product themselves.  Get real WD.

 

 

No one can force the “Advisors” to use a software. Once again, this is a users forum, these “Advisors” are regular people like you and me, if they buy WD Drives then it is their prerogative to use the software or not, nobody pays them to do so.