WDsmartware building etilqs_ files in my windows temp folder - filling my drive!

Brandon, many thanks for your quick reply. 

I’m still not sure whether the “the software is working as designed” mean:

The etilqs files being deleted if I close the WDFME process

Or the etilqs files not being deleted if I simply ‘Turn off the Computer’.

And if the software is designed not to delete the files, is there any harm in deleting them manually, eg does this increase the time needed to back up in future?

I would be grateful for your comments.

I’m a little confused. It seems like a few posters are saying that these temporary files DO get erased nicely, if the WD software is “turned off”, but do NOT get erased, if the computer is shut down.

If that’s true, then it almost sounds as if the WD software isn’t doing its own graceful internal “shut off”, when it receives a notification that Windows wants to shutdown. All applications receive a notification that Windows is terminating. This is the time for applications to gracefully shut themselves down, delete files, close files, etc.

Watchful wrote:

Brandon, many thanks for your quick reply. 

 

I’m still not sure whether the “the software is working as designed” mean:

 

The etilqs files being deleted if I close the WDFME process

 

Or the etilqs files not being deleted if I simply ‘Turn off the Computer’.

 

And if the software is designed not to delete the files, is there any harm in deleting them manually, eg does this increase the time needed to back up in future?

 

I would be grateful for your comments.

The files are not deleted by our software.  If you delete them manually, there is no harm.  Windows will not be able to delete the file that is being written to.  Doing a simple “disk clean up” in Windows gives you the option to delete the temp files, which is the easiest way to remove these.

“The files are not deleted by our software.  If you delete them manually, there is no harm.  Windows will not be able to delete the file that is being written to.  Doing a simple “disk clean up” in Windows gives you the option to delete the temp files, which is the easiest way to remove these.”

Hi Brandon, Is it true that these files do get deleted if the WD Backup function is simply turned off as opposed to just shutting down Windows? That’s the impression I got reading someone else’s comments.

By the way, Windows “disk cleanup” does not delete files in that location. At least it doesn’t on WinXp

Robert_C wrote:

“The files are not deleted by our software.  If you delete them manually, there is no harm.  Windows will not be able to delete the file that is being written to.  Doing a simple “disk clean up” in Windows gives you the option to delete the temp files, which is the easiest way to remove these.”

 

Hi Brandon, Is it true that these files do get deleted if the WD Backup function is simply turned off as opposed to just shutting down Windows? That’s the impression I got reading someone else’s comments.

 

By the way, Windows “disk cleanup” does not delete files in that location. At least it doesn’t on WinXp

These are hidden files and will not be deleted by “Disk Cleanup”. If there is a way to include them, I’m not sure what it is.

“These are hidden files and will not be deleted by “Disk Cleanup”. If there is a way to include them, I’m not sure what it is”

I’m on the road and no where near my computer with the WD software. I can’t say whether they were hidden or not. I do display all files, so even though they are displayed to me, I supppose its possible they were hidden.

However, I’ve run tests before, where I create a file in \Windows\Temp and then run cleanup. The files I created were never removed.

A quick “google” of this, indicates that Disk Cleanup might not touch \Windows\Temp. At least there’s a lot of discussions about that topic.

Brandon wrote:

“The files [etilqs] are not deleted by our software.  If you delete them manually, there is no harm.  Windows will not be able to delete the file that is being written to.  Doing a simple “disk clean up” in Windows gives you the option to delete the temp files, which is the easiest way to remove these.”

Brandon, thanks for the explanation.

I can confirm that my experience, like that of Robert_C, is that ‘Disk Cleanup’ does not remove the etilqs files in Win XP although I see there is some debate as to whether it only deletes those which are over seven days old.  I’m sure I had some which were much older than that but I’ll create some more and see what happens in a week.

Have you got a date for the next version of software please?

Robert_C wrote:

“Hi Brandon, Is it true that these files do get deleted if the WD Backup function is simply turned off as opposed to just shutting down Windows? That’s the impression I got reading someone else’s comments.”

For Robert_C

To avoid any confusion I’ll say what I’ve been doing which might help to confirm whether it’s useful or not.

The default start up opens the following processes:

WDDMService.exe

WDDMStatus.exe

WDRulesEngine.exe

WDFME.exe

I normally have WDFME set to manual and don’t run it all the time because of the RAM resource issue.  I don’t normally run WD SmartWare from Quick View.

When I start WDFME manually, it takes a bit of time to gather the information and back it up but from the few checks I’ve made it seems to work.  As long as WDFME is running it will back up data as you go except for Outlook which has to be closed before backing up and needs time to do so. 

To confirm the backup is complete you need to open WD SmartWare from Quick View or look in Explorer to see if your recent files have been copied.  I don’t check every time and just assume it’s worked after a while.

I have found that if you end the WDFME process eg from Task Manager (or use a .cmd file for this), the etilqs files from the Windows\Temp folder are deleted after a few seconds (time varies from instantaneous up to 10 seconds depending on other activity).  I thought this was a WD design feature but it appears not.  Please note this only deletes the etilqs files from the current session and any earlier files are retained, but it stops them building up. 

Choosing ‘WD SmartWare’ from the Quick View Icon starts the WDSmartWare.exe process.  This allows the settings to be changed, status to be checked etc but does not seem to be essential to the automatic backup process, although I’m open to advice on that.  Choosing ‘Exit WD SmartWare’ from Quick View ends WDSmartWare.exe but leaves WDFME running and the does not delete the etilqs files.  Ending theWDFME process after exiting WD SmartWare will delete them.

Hope this helps.  Please advise if you think this is wrong.

2 Likes

What I’ve done to solve this:

create a simple batch script to delete te etilqs files from the c:\windows\temp file at system startup.

This way, you have the most chance of being able to delete most files, and you won’t have to do any manual actions on it.

the script roughly looks like this (tempty.bat):

cd C:\Windows\Temp

del /F /Q /A:H etilqs_*

del /F /Q etilqs_*

exit

I’ve added a log file option as well.

Once you’ve created such a batch file, place it in a location which exists at system startup (so better not a user-folder) and make sure only you have write permissions and SYSTEM has read/execute permissions.

In Control Panel, go to scheduled tasks, and create a new task AT SYSTEM STARTUP referring to the tempty.bat


What I’m looking to do is to virtually move the Windows/Temp folder to my D: drive somewhere as my SSD C: drive will deteriorate quickly by all these write-actions. I’m not sure how to do that yet, unfortunately.


I’ve figured out how to do this as well, using an NTFS Junction point:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896768

quick how to: download junction.exe and place it in C:\Windows\System32

end all WD processes using task manager

Delete C:\Windows\Temp

Create D:\_Temp (or another location you want to have the WD files)

start cmd as administrator

run the command:

junction C:\Windows\Temp D:\_Temp

done.

So I am new to this etilqs problem, but it is a problem. What I am reading its OK to delete these files no matter how large or how old.  My etilqs files is about 100gb so you see my problem. I am going to delete all of them and set the WDFMEService to manual hope this work.  Since now I know what’s the problem it will be easy to keep a check on it.  I did call WDsmartware tech. Support they told me it was my software problem, I had a hard time understanding him, you know these companies help desk people are from everywhere. I am so thankful for this community for without you all I would still be calling and getting upset!.  So to all who commented of this “etilqs” problem again THANKS…!!!

Hi Watchful,

Has anyone responded to your post here?  I just asked a similar question in the WDFME.exe RAM Hog thread.

Thanks, Daddy Schlich

Hi Daddy Schlich,

I’ve had nothing back on my last post although you’ll see I had some responses to the earlier ones.

I’ve updated to 1.5.4.5 but there is no change except that the Backup and Retrieve tabs are greyed out until I click on the ‘My Passport’ icon on the Home tab. 

The etilqs files are still the same size and are not deleted during a normal closedown although they are if I close WDFME.exe before I close down (which is what I normally do). 

The etilqs files are NOT deleted by Windows cleanup even after a month, which confirms what many others have said.  The average user would gradually lose disk space without realizing what the problem was.

Apart from WDFME, I leave the other WD services running (WDDMstatus.exe, WDRulesService, and WDDMService).   They don’t seem to hog the resources and you need at least some of them when you want to do a back up.

Hope this helps.

WD…

Haven’t enough people told you that Disk Cleanup does not delete these files your software creates? Haven’t you been reading the posts, where people indicate that if they gracefully terminate the WD software before attempting to shutdown Windows, that these files are deleted?

This just proves your software is not properly handling a request from Windows that it wants to shut down. That is your opportunity to gracefully terminate yourself, and delete the files you created. Not to gracefully delete files you create, is the sign of a very poor design. Of course, your software people should already know that.

WD, do you really think its acceptable to expect people to know enough to check in \windows\temp for these files, and remember to manually delete them? Do you really think its acceptable to expect people to write their own little batch file to manually terminate the WD software before shutting down windows?

Wow… I continue to be amazed at the nonsense coming from WD. They expect us to believe its not “their” fault files aren’t being deleted. They even go so far as to say “this software is working as designed”. If *that* is how you design software, I would hope that you’ve terminated the people in your company who profess to be software developers.

Thanks to everyone for information. I had no idea these files were being saved on my main drive but wondered why I was running short of space. I have just retrieved 22Gb by deleting them.

This is totally unacceptable. I am running off my SSD drive which is only 128GB in size and SW had managed to fill my Temp folder with 30GBs of these files. This is not documented, not user-configurable and a total fiasco. Thanks for this thread - I am uninstalling SW and will never look back. Shame on you WD.

I tried the command line technique in the post several pages above, but ran into problems.  Once it started trying to delete these eti* files it said I didn’t have permission.  I went over to the MS User’s Blog, and some guy pointed me to the free program you can dowload here:

"Download, install, and run WinDirStat

 

This program lists ALL your files, including the hidden ones.  You can delete them one at a time, which seems tedious, but very worthwhile if you get rid of 30 GB at a time.  WinDirStat is a useful program in itself.  I wonder why Window doesn't have a similar capability.  Windows explorere, for instance, doesn't show these "hidden" files, so you can't delete them from there.

 

I've just updated to version 1.6.  I'll sure check to see that this problem is fixed.  It took me half a day of figuring out how to delete this files with MS's help, and no help from WD.p://sourceforge.net/projects/windirstat/

I wanted to update and post that this issue shouldn’t exist in our 1.6.0 version of the software.

I can get rid of one file at a time with the multistep procedure two posts above, whiich was OK when I was getting rid of 1 to 40 GB at a time.  However, I have about 100 small ones left, and it offends my sense of neatness.  I’d get rid of them with a DOS script, but when I use DEL  on them it says I’m not authorized to delete those files.  

Can WD post a DOS file or something simpler that would allow getting rid of them more easily.  Remember, when I look at this directory with Windows Explorer on  my Vista system these files just don’t show up.  Perhaps for version 1.6.x you could get the WD program to automatically delete any obsolete ones that it generated in the past.  Thuse

Can someone from WD please give me a method to remove several hundred of these old etil* files in my Windows/Temp folder?  They add up to 7 GB, and serve no useful purpose.  They were generated by WD software.

I went to the Microsoft Answers Forum for help on this topic, and after a lot of work by me and them, got an answer on how to delete those un-needed etil* files that WD generated.  IMHO it is WD’s responsibility to delete them on the many computers they may have put these obsolete files on, or at least tell users how to delete them themselves.  It isn’t enough to say that the latest update doesn’t make them anymore.  WD left a lot of garbage for others to clean up.

mag

The first URL takes you to the last post, which gives the DOS command to delete these files, after you’ve done some other things that may be necessary.  The second URL takes you back to the first thread that started this discourse.

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_vista-performance/what-ms-tools-are-available-for-advanced-disk/c2a04f89-19e3-4d05-97dc-95c0664fe0ba?page=2&tm=1337441389988

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_other-performance/disk-full-messages-keep-returning/b6492cb3-ee91-4688-be41-9ea92fad148f