Having same issues…
Uninstall WDSmartware and my pc performance back to normal.
WDSmartware is not SMART [deleted].
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No
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No
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No
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vssadmin 1.1 - Volume Shadow Copy Service administrative command-line tool
(C) Copyright 2001-2005 Microsoft Corp.
Provider name: ‘Microsoft Software Shadow Copy provider 1.0’
Provider type: System
Provider Id: {b5946137-7b9f-4925-af80-51abd60b20d5}
Version: 1.0.0.7
5.No
Same problem - it start yesterday and hdd even isnt connected… after 3 months of using wd hdd my passport se 1T (only 3 times connected with pc an once i make 1 backup) - no problem but now - I am very very disappointed by this WDFME.exe problem with my 8gb RAM !!! repair it ! how u could sell hdd with this **bleep** software ? i will NEVER EVER buy again your HW coz SW is piece of … its shame that i didnt choose samsung or toshiba hdd ! ! ! support “sock” how I could see here.
Cant believe this. Exactly 4 months ago I posted here to complain to WD about the memory hog issue. And in 4 months I can see NO Progress.
Would some forum moderator please be loyal enough to your company to mention this to your management. Over 4000 page views have happened on this thread alone.
Doesnt WD management ever wake up long enough to actually manage. They could have brought in 2 software programmers…given this to them as an outside assignment…paid them squat…and had the problem fixed already.
I think a few layoffs will result from these managers sleeping at their posts… while the public watches them and makes bad brand loyalty decissions about WD.
Sad, Sad, Sad corporate management who cares less about customers and more about their personal comfort and golf games or whatever. If there is a live manager out there who cares a squat…why not bring this up to some other managers up the chain. Why not also come here and show some actual interest and wish all of us poor WD customers good luck waiting for a fix…
Im having good luck with some one elses software and hardware that works well… and behaves on my computer. Ive walked with my bucks… and have voted with my wallet already… since nobody here pays any attention that results in anything tangible, or Public Relations, or Customer focused.
1 Like
+1 Suzzie12
I turn it off manually now, but i am still quite angry. Tomorrow I would like to uninstall that SW sh!t - after ill connect it with that WD passport hdd and turn my password off. support from WD - shame on u. u have -1 customer now and I never recommend your product again now.
AlexRJ wrote:
- No (Win7 Prof 64-bit - apparently doesn’t have bitlocker…)
- not as far as I am aware - maybe am backing up My Docs (is this encrypted automatically by my Windows login?)
- there are some zip files nested within the folders that are being backed up
- Just the one - MS Software Shadow Copy provider 1.0 - version 1.0.0.7 - HOWEVER, I KNOW THAT VSS SERVICE IS *NOT* TURNED ON (it requires a manual start)
- Source Partitions is NTFS
Hope this helps - fingers crossed re: a fix, as am getting fed up with having to stop the WDFME process so I can get down from 98% RAM Usage to 9%… (makes my PC run faster! - its got 8Gb RAM)
Anyone that is having a high memory issue can you tell me the following (it would be helpful for verification):
- Is Bit Locker turned on?
- Are you backing up encrypted files/folders?
- Are you backing up compressed files/folders?
- Can you also collect the list of VSS providers that are installed on the systems and provide? From an administrative command prompt type: vssadmin list providers
- Are your source partitions are Fat32, exFat, or external USB drives?'
We are currently targeting a major overhaul for the 1.6.x version, there will not be a 1.5.5.x as referenced in my previous posts. This release should follow the release of 1.5.4.x that features a new installer.
__________________________________________
Thanks, your post here was very helpful.
- No 2. No 3. Yes zipped files etc 4. MS Software Shadow Copy Provider 5. NTFS This needs an urgent fix computer is unusable with 98% Ram consumed by WDFME PLEASE PROVIDE DATE FOR NEXR FIRMWARE UPDATE BY RETURN
Please remove this.
Thank you.
@ BBBBBrandon from WD Staff post from about a week ago in this thread:
I am a technical support manager with over 30 years experience in technology, sw and hw engineering and technical support with 20 of these years in technical support management. This issue should be raised to the highest levels possible within the WD management structure by the technical support manager responsible for all the various hw products sold with WD Smartware.
Current Workaround: Note I am disabling the WDFME service in Services control panel and starting the service for backup. There are other workarounds mentioned in this post thread, and some that have not been mentioned, but this is the one I selected.
All of the workarounds leave customers exposed to data loss (except for the ones that suggest buying or using other free automated backup sw) because automated backup is not occurring and has made backup essentially a manual process where users need to remember to perform backups. A prime reason / feature that current users and potential customers consider buying your various products of this type—automated backups.
This has made backups a manual process to a certain extent rather that automatic whenever I dock this particular laptop to its docking station in my home office where I keep my WD My Passport Essential SE drive for this particular laptop. A major feature of many of your drive products is AUTOMATION, and they must keep pace with your competition who supply products that are able to provide the automation feature out-of-box without needing to use other backup SW—competition like other hw drive makers having very similar products.Also you must keep pace with alternative competition such as cloud computing subscription backup services like Carbonite for example, which may be more expensive over time, but offer other advantages that certain users may want or need.
I am awaiting a solution. My patience will run out shortly. At this point, I have stopped recommending your product to my friends and technical colleagues looking for a backup solution, or additional storage space given a small scale solution is required for their particular need/application. I may restart my recommendations if this problem is resolved very soon now.
I have added an RSS feed in my browser to this post and will be watching for a resolution to be posted by you BBBBBrandon .
Now, replying to your, BBBBBrandon post from WD Staff, questions posted about one week ago, here are the answers to your questions:
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No. XP OS. Bit Locker is a feature of only the Ultimate and Enterprise editions Vista and Windows 7 OSes and Windows Server 2008 and 2008R2 if you can believe wiki. Suggest editing your questions to indicate this fact so people don’t waste time running this down unnecessarily when trying to answer your question.
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No.
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Yes. Zip files
4.
Microsoft Windows XP [Version 5.1.2600]
(C) Copyright 1985-2001 Microsoft Corp.
C:\Documents and Settings\Ed_G>vssadmin list providers
vssadmin 1.0 - Volume Shadow Copy Service administrative command-line tool
(C) Copyright 2001 Microsoft Corp.
Provider name: ‘MS Software Shadow Copy provider 1.0’
Provider type: System
Provider Id: {b5946137-7b9f-4925-af80-51abd60b20d5}
Version: 1.0.0.7
- No. NTFS.
I hope this information from me, and replies by other concerned users of your product, who are devoted enough to spend the time to collect this information for you, will help you and your sw development staff QUICKLY resolve this issue.
I’m having the same problem… System went back to normal as soon as I killed WDFME.EXE process.
Set service to manual… and I’m now doing MANUAL backups…
Here are my details:
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No (Vista Business 32-bit Servive Pack 2)
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Not that I am aware of…
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Yes
4.)
Microsoft Windows [Version 6.0.6002]
Copyright (c) 2006 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
C:\Windows\system32> vssadmin list providers
vssadmin 1.1 - Volume Shadow Copy Service administrative command-line tool
(C) Copyright 2001-2005 Microsoft Corp.
Provider name: ‘Microsoft Software Shadow Copy provider 1.0’
Provider type: System
Provider Id: {b5946137-7b9f-4925-af80-51abd60b20d5}
Version: 1.0.0.7
- NTFS.
WD: I think it’s also important for you to remember that not everyone has 8 Gb of RAM, and the latest and greatest CPU. Many of us only have 1-2 Gb of ram.
Another frustrated customer here. It takes at least an hour for my computer to “settle down” after boot-up into a usable state (as in open and closing applications without it taking minutes rather than seconds) since this last upgrade.
I’ve read through this whole thread (all the while wdfm.exe was literally sucking the life out of my resources) and can share that I use FireFox. It follows right after WDFME.exe in Task Manager under Processes in terms of usage. I’m posting this message right now using FireFox so I can’t swich to Chrome but I will check out this option.
To address the requested questions from a previous post (cited below) :
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No
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No
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Yes, there are some zips, gz and possibly tar
C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32>vssadmin list providers
vssadmin 1.0 - Volume Shadow Copy Service administrative command-line tool
(C) Copyright 2001 Microsoft Corp.
Provider name: ‘MS Software Shadow Copy provider 1.0’
Provider type: System
Provider Id: {b5946137-7b9f-4925-af80-51abd60b20d5}
Version: 1.0.0.7
- NTFS: 147 GB with a 55 MB FAT partition and another 3.19 GB FAT32 parition on the hard (source) drive.
I’ve actually seen WDFME.exe at 97% CPU. Ack! Not that I’m in the habit of checking unless I’m having a problem but I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a resource hog.
Hope there’s a fix for this soon or I will have to shut down this feature and look for another option.
Seems like most companies can either get the hardware right but not the applications to run it (or vice versa). Are these mutually exclusive skill sets? It seems that Apple has found a way to around this.
Thx.
Laura
Anyone that is having a high memory issue can you tell me the following (it would be helpful for verification):
- Is Bit Locker turned on?
- Are you backing up encrypted files/folders?
- Are you backing up compressed files/folders?
- Can you also collect the list of VSS providers that are installed on the systems and provide? From an administrative command prompt type: vssadmin list providers
- Are your source partitions are Fat32, exFat, or external USB drives?'
We are currently targeting a major overhaul for the 1.6.x version, there will not be a 1.5.5.x as referenced in my previous posts. This release should follow the release of 1.5.4.x that features a new installer.
This is really bad. First, WD burned me when one of tir hard dirves failed after being in my pc for less than 1 year. Now, my new external drive I use to backup my pc is dominating the whole computer and making it useless. I have a fix - I am in the process of unistalling this software and will use the drive as a simple external drive where I drag and drop files for backups. I am so extremely disappointed…
Very interesting point…
My Samsung np300e7a laptop (Win7 Ultimate - 6Gb RAM) does NOT suffer the same way that my dell desktop does (Win7 Dell XPS 3100 8Gb RAM i7 processor - see below)
On the desktop (Win7 Prof) the WDFME process, if left to run, will use up to 90% of available RAM (eg the desktop will run like a dog, I will stop the WDFME process, and the used RAM will then drop from 98% to 9%)
One the laptop, if I leave the WDFME process running, it never uses more than c25% RAM
Is this because the laptop has Win7 Ultimate? Or just because it has a different motherboard design?
Hope this helps
Alex
AlexRJ wrote:
-
No (Win7 Prof 64-bit - apparently doesn’t have bitlocker…)
-
not as far as I am aware - maybe am backing up My Docs (is this encrypted automatically by my Windows login?)
-
there are some zip files nested within the folders that are being backed up
-
Just the one - MS Software Shadow Copy provider 1.0 - version 1.0.0.7 - HOWEVER, I KNOW THAT VSS SERVICE IS *NOT* TURNED ON (it requires a manual start)
-
Source Partitions is NTFS
Hope this helps - fingers crossed re: a fix, as am getting fed up with having to stop the WDFME process so I can get down from 98% RAM Usage to 9%… (makes my PC run faster! - its got 8Gb RAM)
Anyone that is having a high memory issue can you tell me the following (it would be helpful for verification):
- Is Bit Locker turned on?
- Are you backing up encrypted files/folders?
- Are you backing up compressed files/folders?
- Can you also collect the list of VSS providers that are installed on the systems and provide? From an administrative command prompt type: vssadmin list providers
- Are your source partitions are Fat32, exFat, or external USB drives?'
We are currently targeting a major overhaul for the 1.6.x version, there will not be a 1.5.5.x as referenced in my previous posts. This release should follow the release of 1.5.4.x that features a new installer.
__________________________________________
Thanks, your post here was very helpful.
As bad as this issue has been since inception, it really seems to have gotten much worse in the past few weeks. Now usage spikes to 40-65% when trying to startup IE8, etc. I have to disable this each time I restart. I would just remove the software but need the drive encrypted and this was easier than having to load another encryption package as well as backup option.
I mistakenly hoped that WD would sort this out. I can’t believe that in months, not days, they have done nothing to resolve this issue. Unbelievable.
I am having the same problem - HUGE amounts of memory ALL the time 262.488K as I write this. I have often gone intio CTRL + ALT + DELETE to get to TASJK MANAQGER gone to PROCESSES, clickded on MEMORY USEAGE and WDFME.exe is ALWAYS top… I end use" and all is OK for a while and then the **bleep** thing comes back…
I love the BACKUP process but am now desperate to get rif of the program…
Left messages with support but they are slow… [deleted]
My issue is a little different than the others posted here. WDFME.exe is more of a CPU hog for me. Currently it’s using 52% of the CPU, memory is at 28k. All I did was start IE 9 and open a website containing a live webcam of wildlife. WDFME immediately grabs the CPU. I’m running Vista Home Premium, 64 bit, with 4 GB of memory. The external WD drive isn’t currently connected to my laptop. The process will continue to run like this until I stop the service. I can recreate this scenario time after time, it is a consistent bug!
WD staff, if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask.
Could a staff member let us know if the new release or patch will be issued anytime soon? If it’s going to be very long, I’m going to uninstall this software. As I said in my first comment, I can stop the services - but, I shouldn’t have to!
I’ve been in software development and support for more years than I care to share and in my world, this bug would have been corrected ASAP… no matter how many long hours or days it took. I had one manager that always stated “There’s 24 hours in every day, work until you get it fixed. Our clients are our #1 priority!”.
C’mon WD - step up to the plate!
Have been using WD Smartware on an XP Pro SP3 system with the same issues as everyone else.
Noticed that WDMFE.exe and WDRulesEngine.exe combined will use up 90-100% of the CPU, grinding my machine to a halt. This can last for two hours or so, after which it seems to settle.
I’m using version Smartware version 1.5.16.
A software fix is long overdue WD.
I should have added - it will settle after 2 hours or so if I leave ‘Backup’ on.
But even when I stop the backup in WD Smartware, it still runs. Right now, as I’m trying to do so some significant video editing, WDFME.exe is killing my machine. I have the Backup turned off in Smartware, but this process is still running and taking up to 96% of my CPU.
My PC is struggling to manage this and my video editing software and I can hear the fan screaming try to cool the CPU down. I worry that this thing is going to cause my core to meltdown as it keeps the CPU usage and therefore temperatures up for hours on end. Killing the process only seems to make it take hours to do the next backup.
It’s a joke and I’m totally over this software.
