Memeo virus software bundled with WD external hard-drives

[psyberyeti]

Hello Folks,
Anyone out there know how to remove the 'memeo' virus software bundled with Western Digital external hard-drives?

Memeo refuse to tell users how to remove the virus. Somebody must have cracked it. It's taking up nearly 10% of my external hard-drive space.

You have no option with this software. It downloads itself, it has no program listing to remove and garbles the data suffixes so 'delete' and 'cut' do not work either. You just can't get rid of it.

HELP!!!

[blueivy]

Hello Folks,
Anyone out there know how to remove the 'memeo' virus software bundled with Western Digital external hard-drives?

Memeo refuse to tell users how to remove the virus. Somebody must have cracked it. It's taking up nearly 10% of my external hard-drive space.

You have no option with this software. It downloads itself, it has no program listing to remove and garbles the data suffixes so 'delete' and 'cut' do not work either. You just can't get rid of it.

HELP!!!

Did you see this thread (it mentions removing it through the registry)?

[psyberyeti]

Hello blueivy,

Yes been there, and emailed the company. I'm a bit of a Ludite but I do know not to touch the 'registry' if you don't have a clue. The Memeo company seem to want to have remote access to people's computers to remove the virus program; I'm not going to let them do that either. Why did WD bundle this virus software with their perfectly fine hard-drive??

Thanks for the lead anyway. I've asked them for a no-messing method of removing all the bits of virus program that it has loaded, but I'm not hopefull.

[dano]

Hello blueivy,

Yes been there, and emailed the company. I'm a bit of a Ludite but I do know not to touch the 'registry' if you don't have a clue. The Memeo company seem to want to have remote access to people's computers to remove the virus program; I'm not going to let them do that either. Why did WD bundle this virus software with their perfectly fine hard-drive??

Thanks for the lead anyway. I've asked them for a no-messing method of removing all the bits of virus program that it has loaded, but I'm not hopefull.

Memeo is legitimate software for doing backup and sync. There's a problem with an installer that causes the uninstall to not appear in some cases. You've already been in contact with tech support, obviously, so I'm not sure why you keep calling it a virus. In any event, support can also make a tool available to you to clean everything off your machine. Our support (yes, I work for Memeo) is very hands on and they generally will try remote control to fix the problem quickly and easily. If that's not an option for you, send email to "feedback@memeo.com" and I will make sure that your issue is solved.

[blueivy]

Memeo is legitimate software for doing backup and sync. There's a problem with an installer that causes the uninstall to not appear in some cases. You've already been in contact with tech support, obviously, so I'm not sure why you keep calling it a virus. In any event, support can also make a tool available to you to clean everything off your machine. Our support (yes, I work for Memeo) is very hands on and they generally will try remote control to fix the problem quickly and easily. If that's not an option for you, send email to "feedback@memeo.com" and I will make sure that your issue is solved.

Dano,

I think psyberyeti isn't suggesting your software is a virus that does malicious harm to computers. I think what he is suggesting that it is acting like a virus and your support forums (and other forums / blogs and pages) would seem to support this.

From reading the forums (and I don't use Memeo so my experience is limited to that) Memeo appears to install itself without either the users permission or they're not sure of what they are installing (they've just bought a new hard drive and then software wants to install - maybe they think they need it to use the hard drive ...?) and then it is very difficult to remove. I think we can all agree that that is what malware does.

psyberyeti has the software installed and he can't get rid of it. That's why he's calling it a virus.

psyberyeti doesn't want Memeo Tech Support pouring over his machine to fix the problem that Memeo created. I'm sure you can understand that. After all these are the same guys who created the software that he no longer trusts as it's installed itself on his machine and he can't get rid of it.

I've been working in IT now for almost 18 years and I can't remember a company who routinely uses remote control to uninstall their program. Especially something as simple as Memeo so I'm unsure why you guys need to do that. Would it not be a better use of your time (and money) and the customers time to tell people, in straightforward simple steps, how to remove your software. Or better still, provide an automated uninstaller. I see you have a tool that cleans everything (that I assume is an uninstaller). Why don't you just make that available on your site with instruction on how to use it? That would cut down on the number of support calls you get asking the same question - how do I uninstall Memeo). Better still fix your installer so that it doesn't create this problem in the first place?

What I think people should be doing however is directing their anger at Western Digital who decided it would be a good idea to dupe it's customers into installing software they don't need to run their drives and perhaps don't even want. It doesn't matter if it's Memeo or something else, the point is they should be giving their customers the option or not doing it at all.

[dano]

Dano,

I think psyberyeti isn't suggesting your software is a virus that does malicious harm to computers. I think what he is suggesting that it is acting like a virus and your support forums (and other forums / blogs and pages) would seem to support this.

From reading the forums (and I don't use Memeo so my experience is limited to that) Memeo appears to install itself without either the users permission or they're not sure of what they are installing (they've just bought a new hard drive and then software wants to install - maybe they think they need it to use the hard drive ...?) and then it is very difficult to remove. I think we can all agree that that is what malware does.

psyberyeti has the software installed and he can't get rid of it. That's why he's calling it a virus.

psyberyeti doesn't want Memeo Tech Support pouring over his machine to fix the problem that Memeo created. I'm sure you can understand that. After all these are the same guys who created the software that he no longer trusts as it's installed itself on his machine and he can't get rid of it.

I've been working in IT now for almost 18 years and I can't remember a company who routinely uses remote control to uninstall their program. Especially something as simple as Memeo so I'm unsure why you guys need to do that. Would it not be a better use of your time (and money) and the customers time to tell people, in straightforward simple steps, how to remove your software. Or better still, provide an automated uninstaller. I see you have a tool that cleans everything (that I assume is an uninstaller). Why don't you just make that available on your site with instruction on how to use it? That would cut down on the number of support calls you get asking the same question - how do I uninstall Memeo). Better still fix your installer so that it doesn't create this problem in the first place?

What I think people should be doing however is directing their anger at Western Digital who decided it would be a good idea to dupe it's customers into installing software they don't need to run their drives and perhaps don't even want. It doesn't matter if it's Memeo or something else, the point is they should be giving their customers the option or not doing it at all.

Hi Paul,

I don't disagree with your comments regarding our support process. The issue here seems to be a mismatch between someone who needs help and our support team who has different tools in their toolkit to provide that help and who probably mentioned one that wasn't useful.

Because we provide backup and sync software to several of the world's largest hard disk manufacturers, we have more than a million users who have installed and who use our software daily. This uninstall problem is limited to one version of one of our products and it is definitely not intentional. We didn't purposely make it difficult to uninstall. The problem has long been fixed, but there are some hard drives out there that may still have this particular version pre-installed. I can tell you for sure that we would prefer that anyone who doesn't want the software be able to easily uninstall it vs. calling us for support. However, regarding remote control, many of our customers are extremely non-technical, and some of them want/need hand-holding to help them. I don't see that as a negative. I think that's customer service above and beyond.

Of course you are right - in this particular case, why would a user who doesn't know a company want someone poking around in his system? Chalk it up to their desire to help the customer as quickly as possible.

We do offer a tool to uninstall and we do offer manual registry instructions for users who don't want to run a tool that we provide them. psyberyeti commented that he didn't feel comfortable making registry changes (which is not uncommon) so it sounds like our support thought that they could help him and do it for him.

I just want to make sure that psyberyeti gets this issue resolved quickly!

Dan

[bluenose]

Coincidence? Memeo gets mentioned and Dano makes himself a member?

[psyberyeti]

Thank you blueivy for putting, what I am getting at, so clearly.

I emailed the memeo helpline (helpline?) a number of times. It was quite clear that they were not even reading my replies to them as I was getting stock replies back each time (the transcripts of which I can put up here if memeo want to dispute that).

In my latest email to them I have asked the memeo guys to:

"Please advise what you would like to do next. My suggestions are:

• Provide clear, instructions on how to remove this program, or its remnants
• Provide a new, clean, Western Digital drive from a reputable company
• I contact Western Digital, providing them with the details as they have progressed so far. I will be asking them to provide a validated program to remove the Memeo virus from a drive provided by them.

Thank you."

I don't think that that is unreasonable. I did not want these problems in the first place.

I think it is important that users (local Sutherland/Caithness photographers have a lot to back up) are made aware of potential problems if they see that a memeo program is listed in external drives contents directory before they install it.

I bought and use two further WD external drives for my place of work. They don't have the memeo programme and I am very happy with them.

I want an external hard-drive with no memeo program on it, virus or not. It appears that many other users want the same.

[blueivy]

I want an external hard-drive with no memeo program on it, virus or not. It appears that many other users want the same.

It would be good if Dano came back to answer questions. As I suspected of Memeo (and looks like I was right) they are great when things go well and terrible when things go badly. When there is a problem they can't fix, instead of working at it and solving it (regardless of how long it takes) or putting their hand up and saying 'we don't know' they sit back and ignore it in the vain hope that it goes away.

Their tie-up with WD is nothing but a financial one which we can't fault, after all that's what businesses do - make money. What I would be interested to know is how many WD hard drives were sold with Memeo on them?

[psyberyeti]

... and Dano, or Memeo, never replied.

Thanks for your on-line help Blue Ivy. I meant to drop into your Thurso shop and thank you personally, but I go there so rarely.

I eventually used some sort of clean-up program to break into it, disable and remove it; it may have been an AVG program, can't remember now.

Best wishes, psyberyeti (now with 2 x 3 GB RAID, mirror array)