Access My Passport files without installing WD Smartware

I just got my new Passport Elite yesterday. I too want to use this drive as external storage, NOT just for backup and restore. Since I haven’t acutally done anything with it yet, I don’t have a problem re-formatting the drive, it just seems like an extreme solution just to use the drive for what I bought it for - extra storage to augment my laptop.

Is this truely the ONLY way???