Re: Post Your SmartWare Win Version 1.5.1.6 Experiences Here

I was just saying, not defending…  

frankly i agree.  if they haven’t made it better by now, what makes you think they can?  if thesoftware don’t work don’t use it.

WD Managers need to become aware of this… and be responsible for the company reputation…and reprioritize their own desires…and stick several people on this for a period of time.

When a piece of software has more than 5 things major wrong with it…people start thinking ill of the developers and especially Western Digital in this case.

I purchased this 2tb drive because their sales center said it had file and folder specific software that would make the drive act as a backup device…how novel…using a WD device to protect your files.

Well it aint working well for me.  Ive had the thing running in the background during the day and running full by itself for 5 nights already…and still I havent backed up a single 500gb drive to this new 2tb drive.  I could have dragged the files over myself for heavens sake and be done with it.  BUT, my need is for file copies to be backed up right after I create them…I was looking for some intelligence from the drive solution.

Maybe some manager with some authority and some sense and respect for the company and its customers will read this and have the guts to raise it up with a solution to put a bit more time into this so people like me dont get the idea to stop buying WD drives because they cant even figureout how to copy some files from one drive to another.

Suzzie

I Have an Idea… for the alert software delelopment manager at WD.

Your WDFME.exe program shows me… in my task manager… that it consumes 89% of all my CPU processor cycles…and makes my computer act like it was running on molasses.  YOUR PROGRAM KILLS ME!

SOLUTION:   put in a line of code that says…if there is any cursor activity by the user…then stop immediately  and then suspend any WDFME activity for 60 seconds.  Also,  you could throttle bad behavior from this program by seeing if any  meaningful user process is running…and shutting its rentless persuits down.  It seems like it may occasionally throttle back…but its too imature of a process.   Your relentless  indexing of files can wait a bit  till im done with my money making computer activities

Now, I can use my computer… and have your program behave…right now  it runs all the time… and it HOGS EVERYTHING,  I mean EVERYTHING.

If you work at WD and read this…please have the common sense to pass this up to a manager…you might get an attaboy for being aware of customer needs… and a place where WD is loosing precious reputation points.

You are not the backup drive company of choice any longer… till you quickly fix your SMARTWARE. (do some UI work too…and make the functionality more meaningful too).  Hire some freelancers that are out of work for a one time fee to fix this.

Suzzie.

Suzzie your spot on there thee whole thing is a crock and someone needs to take responsibility for this. I’ve updated several times and it still takes up huge chunks of memory why can’t they get a grip of this problem. Shouldn’t someone get the boot -  - lets face it the drive is a neat solution let down with ■■■■ poor software.

Get a grip chaps. . . .

I’ve removed your software as I can’t wait all day long for the computer to speed up enough to allow me to do my work.

Fergus

Confused, don’t know when it happened or how it happened but and I hate that word, my computer suddenly started slowing down to a crawl every time I start her up. Don’t know if it happened when I loaded this version of  WD SmartWare 1.5.1.6 or some windows vista update. I figured out that by going to task master and shutting down WDFME.exe, she acted nicely for the rest of the day and my WD backups still happen.  I start up in the morning and shut down at night. If a program says it needs an update, I undate it. I am running vista on a HP pavilion laptop 32 bit with 3 gig memory. My vista is always up to date as well as my anti virus program as all other program that I use. Currently my CPU in between 90 to 100% and my Memory in 2.94GB. MY processes WDFME.exe is running between 50 to 88% CPU. My WD SmartWare says that my partial backup accomplished. I have read everything here from two or three software versions back. I did not have this problem back then but it seems that I do now. This WDFME.exe should shut down when not it use. I am not currently added data to be updated. I do not backup email or movies. WDFME.exe is slow to release to other program like opening the internet. I end the process and CPU usage drops to 15 to 30% and my memory drops to 1.12 GB and every thing behaves. Solution, delete software?  Hire a hacker to fix software?  As I said confused and boiling over.

have you tried pausing the program when you don’t need it?

Hi Wayne,

can you give instructions for dummies like me about how to “pause the program” as I have never found out how to do it.

Regards

John

it’s real simple.  open up smartware, click on backup tab, and in the bottom right corner you’ll see the stop backup button.  when you’re ready to start it again, just go back to that button and click on it.

Hi Wayne ,

I see what you mean but if you look at task manager whether backup is on or off  WDFME still crunches on as I think that it is always on unless you uninstall it. Swithching backup off does not stop other processes from running.

I have NO Specialist Knowledge of this software or how to uninstall it safely but I have read all the posts in all the threads here and this is what has been reported.

Switching Backup off and then on again does cause the software to start re-configuring the FILES TO BE BACKED UP which does help with the content gauge problem but not the CPU/RAM problem.

John

you might be able to stop the wdfme process in task manager and see if that helps.  also, from what I’ve heard, they’re still working on the ram/cpu usage problem.  otherwise, that’s pretty much it.

I updated to this version, and now WDME is taking up 50% of my CPU utilization.

Windows 7

4 gigs of RAM

2 year old Lenovo

My Passport

that’s pretty low compared to what I’ve seen.  does the usage slow down you computer at all?  if not, then I wouldn’t worry about it.

I am running Windows XP SP3 with 4 gigs installed and 3.25 recognized.

My WD program will consume 45 to 87% of my entire system resources when it is running in the background.  It runs continually in the background even if the main program is closed. It slows my computer down so much that opening a browser will take 2 seconds normally to open without the program interferring… and will  take 14 seconds to open the same window when it is present.  Every step or operation on my computer is slowed and delayed to an unacceptable performance level.

One of its problems is that It does not sense or respond to my using the computer…If it could sense my mouse movements or keyboard activity… and then totally shut its indexing type activities down all the way to 0 % for at least 10 minutes…then maybe that would be helpful somewhat.   It would also be helpful if another menu were put into the program that says…do not run ANY WD type files until 1am-6am in the morning for example.

I own 17 WD Drives.  I recently purchased a 2 gig external drive for $245 and it contained the problem software.  I spent that money so I could back up my files reliably and safely and conveniently.  I used to have a good loyalty to WD…now I want to get rid of the drive and its company.  The fact that forum leaders threaten to shut down the thread because customers are inconvenienced in troublesome and not customer centric.  It would have been more helpful to hear “I have read your concerns, I am here to be helpful, I will contact my WD boss and will alert executives within WD to show them the many concerns customers are expressing in this public forum…and maybe they would be willing to consider re-priorotizing their work activity based on the customer relations value of their sharing their time and concerns with us”   From what I can tell from here, WD is distant, not involved, punitive, and not really interested in what its customers have to say here.  You could have been most helpful by saying Im just a forum leader, I hear the concern, let me pass this on, and yes they are interested and may re-direct their priority of work to help resolve the impact their software is having on users machines.

Sorry to be so blunt.  Todays economy and business environment rewards companies and forum operators who listen and act responsively…and yes I did see that maybe I should contact WD support directly…I will consider that if I have 20-30 minutes to research out their number and and hold times.

you could email them too. 

http://support.wdc.com/contact/index.asp?lang=en

Suzzie12 wrote:

I own 17 WD Drives.  I recently purchased a 2 gig external drive for $245 and it contained the problem software.  I spent that money so I could back up my files reliably and safely and conveniently.  I used to have a good loyalty to WD…now I want to get rid of the drive and its company.  The fact that forum leaders threaten to shut down the thread because customers are inconvenienced in troublesome and not customer centric.  It would have been more helpful to hear “I have read your concerns, I am here to be helpful, I will contact my WD boss and will alert executives within WD to show them the many concerns customers are expressing in this public forum…and maybe they would be willing to consider re-priorotizing their work activity based on the customer relations value of their sharing their time and concerns with us”   From what I can tell from here, WD is distant, not involved, punitive, and not really interested in what its customers have to say here.  You could have been most helpful by saying Im just a forum leader, I hear the concern, let me pass this on, and yes they are interested and may re-direct their priority of work to help resolve the impact their software is having on users machines.

 

Sorry to be so blunt.  Todays economy and business environment rewards companies and forum operators who listen and act responsively…and yes I did see that maybe I should contact WD support directly…I will consider that if I have 20-30 minutes to research out their number and and hold times.

I’m not sure which thread you are referring to, but the only reason we would “threaten” to shut down a thread is because the users have gone off topic in some serious violation of our usage guidelines.  We, as moderators, are here first to make sure that users stay within the usage guidelines, and we don’t normally have to deal with users publicly to do that.  We are definitely here to help when we can.  And we pass things along all the time.  If we have words of encouragement we definitely employ them, and we do let people know any information we can make available.  

I do understand that having to publicly calm a thread down may seem like it’s not customer centric.  But you need to understand that when users get really frustrated and rude, or go way off topic, it can shut down other users from getting involved and maybe helping.  When we step in publicly, we are letting our other users know that we are defending their place here.  This is a user to user community, and it is our job to make sure that everyone has a right to voice their experiences, ideas, and opinions without harrassment.  Just as you have done right now. 

I apologize for any offense we, moderators, may have caused in this process.