[SOLVED] How to get rid of WD Smartware?

box o rocks

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Apr 9, 2012
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I have this little icon in the tray portion of my taskbar that's called "WD Smartware". I have no WD component in my system that I am aware of. I think it may possibly be left over from using a WD portable HDD recently. (?)

WD Smartware apparently left a driver in my system that prevented me from enabling Memory Integrity (Win 11) until I uninstalled said driver. Now thankfully, Memory Integrity is re-enabled, but this useless icon remains. R/L clicking on it does nothing. I can't find a location of the software to even uninstall it. Is there any way to remove WD Smartware, and its icon in the tray?

i5-10400
Asus H510/ac
16 GB DDR4
 
What sort of storage drives are yo working with on your platform? Have you tried a system restore to a pint prior to when the app was installed? I'm assuming it was installed by the OS...? If you don't own any WD storage device then it might've come onboard via the OS or someone other than you installed it unknowingly.
 
SmartWare lives in a hidden area at the end of WD's PassPort drives and also in some My Books. It is automatically loaded whenever you plug in the external HDD. I don't know why it is still hanging around, unless you explicitly installed it. It is required if you need to protect your drive with a password.
 
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What sort of storage drives are yo working with on your platform? Have you tried a system restore to a pint prior to when the app was installed? I'm assuming it was installed by the OS...? If you don't own any WD storage device then it might've come onboard via the OS or someone other than you installed it unknowingly.
I have no WD drives. Just an Intel M.2 MVNe drive. And a Buffalo NAS on the home network. The only time I ever encountered a WD drive was when I did a backup to a portable mini USB drive. But that drive had been wiped of all WD software years ago on another machine.
 
The only time I ever encountered a WD drive was when I did a backup to a portable mini USB drive. But that drive had been wiped of all WD software years ago on another machine.
With the older Passports there would be two devices in File Explorer -- a regular USB mass storage device plus a SmartWare VCD (Virtual CD). This VCD lived in the hidden SmartWare area on the drive and contained WD's software. You can't wipe this hidden SmartWare area, assuming that's where SmartWare was loaded from from.
 
With the older Passports there would be two devices in File Explorer -- a regular USB mass storage device plus a SmartWare VCD (Virtual CD). This VCD lived in the hidden SmartWare area on the drive and contained WD's software. You can't wipe this hidden SmartWare area, assuming that's where SmartWare was loaded from from.
Do you think that somehow migrated to my desktop? How would that happen and and why put it on the machine w/o the users knowledge?
Nevertheless, how to get rid of whatever is placing that icon in my tray?