Uninstalling and reinstalling My Cloud

My Cloud OS 3 Personal & Network Attached Storage My Cloud
1

I have uninstalled My Cloud on one family laptop but when I then go to Windows Explorer I am still seeing under Network “WDMYCLOUD” with Users…, Public, SmartWare, and TomeMachineBackup. Please advise how this network content can be removed so that I can complete a new reinstall? The reason I want to do this is because currently the User can see all User content even though I have set ‘Share’ access to ‘No Access’.  

Alterntatively how can I protect individual User content with a Password?

2

You can uninstall the WD My Cloud “software” but you generally cannot “uninstall” a WD My Cloud unit that is connected to your local network from one specific computer. The WD My Cloud is a Network Attached Storage device. Generally the only true way to “uninstall” a WD My Cloud is to disconnect the unit entirely from your local network which would prevent everyone from being able access it.

Anyone who connects to the WD My Cloud will be able to view and access any and all content contained in any Share that has “Public Access” set to “On”. Any Share that has “Public Access” set to “Off” will require a user name and password, both of which one creates via the WD My Cloud Dashboard user interface, to access those private folders.

If you have already granted a user access to a private Share then the first step is to change their access permission for that Share from either “Full Access” or “Read Access” to “No Access” via the Dashboard. If one can still access a private Share even though a share has been configured for “No Access” for their User account, then try power cycling the computer they are using, and or the WD My Cloud device, and check again.

It should also be noted that if one has enabled “Media Sharing” on any Private Share anyone with a DLNA client (like Windows Media Player for example) will be able to access any media files contained within that Private Share. Only way to prevent this is to set “Media Sharing” to “Off” via the Dashboard for that Share. One further note. The Public Share folder defaults to being public and available to anyone. The option to set the Public Share folder to private is disabled on the Dashboard. however, due to a programing bug within the Dashboard it is possible to change the Public Share to a private Share. To do so simply attempt to change the Public Share folder name via the Dashboard which will generate an error message. Once the error message is dismissed the “Public Access” setting becomes selectable and can be set to “Off”.

If you haven’t already done so it is recommended to read the WD My Cloud User Manual for more information on how to configure User access to Shares.

3

I have 3 Users.

Settings on dashboard for all 3 Users have been set as follows:

User Profile:

Password  ON

Share Access Full Access

Share Profile:

Media Serving  OFF

Public Access  OFF

Note: With these settings all three User’s data contents can we viewed in Windows Explorer when logged on as User 1 on User 1 computer.

Question: What settings do I change to prevent User 1 seeing the data contents for Users 2 and 3?

 

4

Dummy2 wrote:

I have 3 Users.

Settings on dashboard for all 3 Users have been set as follows:

User Profile:

Password  ON

Share Access Full Access

Share Profile:

Media Serving  OFF

Public Access  OFF

Note: With these settings all three User’s data contents can we viewed in Windows Explorer when logged on as User 1 on User 1 computer.

Question: What settings do I change to prevent User 1 seeing the data contents for Users 2 and 3?

If you have configured User 1 to have “Full Access” (on the Share menu) to User 2 and 3 Share folders that explains why User 1 has access to User 2 and 3 Share folders. Change User 1 persmission to user 2 and 3 Share folder from “Full Access” to “No Access”. Do the same for user 2 to prevent access to user 1 and 3’s shared folders. Same goes for user 3 and any other users to prevent access to other individual user’s shared folders.

5

Thanks for advice. I purposely set all 3 Users the same configuration setup so that I had a common baseline to work from. Following advice of limitting “Full Access” to only themselves for each User I then rebooted “My Cloud” and User 1’s computer. The following are results when opening Windows Explorer on User 1 computer with their logon and password:

Network > WDMYCLOUD > User1

Windows Security 

Enter Network Password 

X Access is denied

Network > WDMYCLOUD > User2

Windows Security 

Enter Network Password 

X Access is denied

Network > WDMYCLOUD > User3

The full content of User3 content is displayed

I am now very confused and would appreciate advice on what I should do next?

6

Go back and check the user permissions for the share folders and ensure they’re properly set for each user. make sure User 1 does not have permission to access User 3’s share folder.

If you have mapped user 3’s share to User 1’s computer remove the mapped drive and then attempt to reaccess it.

Reboot the computer if the problem persists, sometimes Windows does strange things when accessing network drives or folders that are password protected that are cleared up by a reboot.

7

I have My Cloud installed on my new MacBook Pro running Sierra 10.12.2. I Am soooo sick of the MyCloud poor performance that I have removed all the data from it (boy wasn’t that fun!) and I am trying to uninstall the software and I can completely divorce myself from the My Cloud experience. This device is going up for sale on eBay/Craiglist.

When I try uninstalling it I get a message that the program stopped running unexpectedly and ask if I want to Ignore, Report or Reopen. I have selected reopen several times, rebooted and tried again but nothing is working to remove this software.

Any help on how to remove this is much appreciated.

Best regards
Tony

1 Like
8

What My Cloud program do you have installed? If you have problems uninstalling it, try reinstalling the software then uninstalling it. May have to do so with administrator (computer admin) rights/level.

No software is needed to use or configure the My Cloud. All configuration can be done using a web browser to access the My Cloud Dashboard. For local access to the My Cloud one simply uses Mac Finder (or Windows File Explorer). Its a good idea to “map” the My Cloud drive to the computer.

http://support.wdc.com/knowledgebase/answer.aspx?ID=2686

For backing up to the My Cloud on the Mac, use Apple’s built in Time Machine. WD Sync is hit or miss for many. If you need to sync locally there are third party options like Free File Sync (http://www.freefilesync.org/). For remote access one could use MyCloud.com.

9

This has been a long journey of reading through this community forum and hearing all the horror stories of folks not being able to uninstall software. I just got off the phone with Paul B. from WD and he was there to help me remove this WD My Cloud desktop software from my new MacBook Pro. He first said there was no software on my computer from WD and he wanted to know what I wanted to uninstall. My first point, if you cannot find the software that your company wrote installed on a computer, my suspicions rose.

Once he seen it he tried to use the uninstaller to remove it and received the same error I did. Then he wanted me to reboot a computer I just turned on for the call. No need since it was just rebooted.

He had me on hold for quite a while and came back and asked where I got the software to install, he wanted to know if the software came with my old WD My Cloud Gen1. I asked him why he was asking and he said we do not use that old software any more. I told him I downloaded it from WD’d website and if it is not supported and should not be installed, remove access to the software from the public.

I was on hold again. When he returned he looked in the applications folder again and then told me to move the folder that contained the uninstaller and the app (the app he said was not on my computer) to the trash. I asked why we would want to trash the only software on my computer that was made to uninstall the software and he said because I do not have any software installed. Not following his logic I moved it to the trash and then he wanted to empty the trash. I refused to do that and got rather upset with his lack of explanation for the rationale he was going through to remove from my computer. I told him that software is placed throughout the computer and I would like to know where those locations are since he never traversed through the HDD just simply used the finder and the standard links in the finder. I told him I have no problem with him viewing my screen but I no longer want him to have control of my MacBook Pro. He surrendered control.

I am on hold again… While I was on hold I restored the trashed folder. When he finally came back, I was on hold more than I wasn’t) he asked me to empty the trash and reboot and I did. He asked me if the app folder was still there and obviously it was since I restored it.

I am on hold again, this time he comes back and asked if my Mac is backed up anywhere so I can restore to a point before their software was installed.

I now know why there are so many upset people because now I am upset. I told him I read that many folks out here have asked what files are placed where on the HDD of a Mac so they can be removed by hand. He said he went through that process already… but I never see him access the HDD and go through a screening process, simply use the Finder and the standard links to browse.

Is the software that simple that no other HDD software was installed, just the main app file? If this is so then why does the uninstaller located in the same folder as the app fail to uninstall??