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    The first time I remote desktop in to my Home Server after reboot, I am always greeted by a dialog telling me that WiDMS.exe has crashed. Known issue?
    I am running Power Pack 3, nothing much extra installed.
    Saturday, January 16, 2010 11:02 PM

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    In the Windows Home Server Settings, there is a section "Settings for DMS" and there "Digital Media Server" is disabled. So WiDMS.exe is either something else, or it's not respecting the setting.
    WiDMS is not part of the WHS OS.  It's an application installed by OEM manufacturers (in your case, Acer).  You should try contacting Acer for support.
    Sunday, January 17, 2010 1:49 AM
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    Okay, actually did find the solution on http://forum.home-server-blog.de (German). Apparently the WiDMS app indeed has a file path issue, and it can be solved by editing the Config file in the folder where the WIDMS.EXE file is residing.

    Simply remove the line in the config file "PREFIX C:" and add "C:\" to all the library entries
    base_dir = C:\Programme\Wistron\WiDMS
    music_dir = C:\Programme\Wistron\WiDMS\Music
    photo_dir = C:\Programme\Wistron\WiDMS\Photo
    video_dir = C:\Programme\Wistron\WiDMS\Video
    database = C:\Programme\Wistron\WiDMS\cds.db

    Done! (this is of course assuming that the program does reside on the C: drive)

    I did reboot the server to be on the save side but ever since (well, past hr) the service did not stop anymore.

    Haven't tested yet the performance of streaming of pics yet, will do that tomorrow.

    Ciao
    Dirk
    • Proposed as answer by DirkWe Friday, March 12, 2010 9:31 PM
    • Marked as answer by Olaf EngelkeModerator Friday, March 12, 2010 10:44 PM
    Friday, March 12, 2010 9:31 PM

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    Can you tell us more about your server? Hve you done a search (here and on Google) for widms.exe? What did you find?
    I'm not on the WHS team, I just post a lot. :)
    Saturday, January 16, 2010 11:30 PM
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    Yes, I searched for WiDMS.exe and there is only an irrelevant post mentioning it. Nothing useful on Bing, one relevant post found through Google.
    This is an ACER EasyStore H340 with no hardware added and very little tweaking done. Apparently it's not an essential service so I can disable it but it's not a good sign that it's DOA.
    Sunday, January 17, 2010 12:07 AM
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    In the Windows Home Server Settings, there is a section "Settings for DMS" and there "Digital Media Server" is disabled. So WiDMS.exe is either something else, or it's not respecting the setting.

    Sunday, January 17, 2010 12:14 AM
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    In the Windows Home Server Settings, there is a section "Settings for DMS" and there "Digital Media Server" is disabled. So WiDMS.exe is either something else, or it's not respecting the setting.
    WiDMS is not part of the WHS OS.  It's an application installed by OEM manufacturers (in your case, Acer).  You should try contacting Acer for support.
    Sunday, January 17, 2010 1:49 AM
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    Thank you. So "Digital Media Server" in the Settings is for something else?
    Sunday, January 17, 2010 3:21 AM
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    Thank you. So "Digital Media Server" in the Settings is for something else?
    That is apparently also part of the Acer EasyStore install (there is no "Digital Media Server" in the Console when installed from the MS image).  I would assume WiDMS is the same as Digital Media Server, but I don't know.
    Sunday, January 17, 2010 3:31 AM
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    Uninstalling WiDMS (which is from a company called Wistron, which was apparently spun off from ACER many moons ago) also removed the "Digital Media Server" settings section, so apparently that's what it was for, even though obviously it was at least partially ignoring the disbled setting. I removed it when I noticed that it had made its own copies of all my photos, videos and music, something that I had no interest in. (The uninstallation removed those copied.)
    Sunday, January 17, 2010 3:50 AM
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    Hey thanks for your investigation. I'm getting the same error on my Acer ezStore H340. I assumed I needed to enable this program because it was controlling DLNA, which I need for the xbox 360. It looks like I don't, and the fact that the program is making copies of all of the media makes this one of the worst programs I've ever encountered. Going to have to write acer about it.

    Thanks!


    edit: Actually, in fairness, it doesn't look like they are true copies. I think they are symbolic links, because I deleted a song from the WiDMS folder and it was removed fromt he shared music folder. Anyway, its still a worthless program.
    Thursday, February 4, 2010 1:48 AM
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    Also a heads up, the files in /WiDMS are junctions of the shared folders. I was afraid to just remove the program in add/remove (I don't know how careless the removal is), so I picked up Junction from http://technet.micro...s/bb896768.aspx and removed it before uninstalling. The last thing I wanted was for the uninstaller to just delete the parent folder and take my shares with it! It doesnt sound like Cacadoodledoo had this problem, but I wanted to be 100% sure =)
    Thursday, February 4, 2010 2:33 AM
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    WiDMS also creates hidden jpg thumbnail files in your Photos directories. It crashes due to path names longer than it can deal with. (Check your Event log)

    Gerrit
    Friday, February 5, 2010 4:19 AM
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    Hi all - very interesting posts since I got the Acer H340 since two weeks now and get the same error message pretty much right from start. Which is when I moved my media data over to the server, so the path names indeed could play a role.

    What I am however more interested in is the interaction with your XBox 360 - since for some reason the streaming of my pics is *much* slower from the WHS which literally sits next to my XBox connected through 100MBit LAN compared to my PC which is far away, connected via PowerLAN.

    On my XBox I get to see the pics from the server called "WHSservername:1", and if I have WiDMS active (the few minutes before it does crash again) I also have "WHSservername" and got a feeling that that is much faster. Thus my interest in getting WiDMS to work.

    Any clues, suggestions are welcome.
    Ciao
    Dirk
    Friday, March 12, 2010 7:34 PM
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    Okay, actually did find the solution on http://forum.home-server-blog.de (German). Apparently the WiDMS app indeed has a file path issue, and it can be solved by editing the Config file in the folder where the WIDMS.EXE file is residing.

    Simply remove the line in the config file "PREFIX C:" and add "C:\" to all the library entries
    base_dir = C:\Programme\Wistron\WiDMS
    music_dir = C:\Programme\Wistron\WiDMS\Music
    photo_dir = C:\Programme\Wistron\WiDMS\Photo
    video_dir = C:\Programme\Wistron\WiDMS\Video
    database = C:\Programme\Wistron\WiDMS\cds.db

    Done! (this is of course assuming that the program does reside on the C: drive)

    I did reboot the server to be on the save side but ever since (well, past hr) the service did not stop anymore.

    Haven't tested yet the performance of streaming of pics yet, will do that tomorrow.

    Ciao
    Dirk
    • Proposed as answer by DirkWe Friday, March 12, 2010 9:31 PM
    • Marked as answer by Olaf EngelkeModerator Friday, March 12, 2010 10:44 PM
    Friday, March 12, 2010 9:31 PM
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    I'm also getting the same error in the EasyStore H340. I did a clean install and apparently the program works just fine from scratch with the provided Server Restore CD. However, when you update your windows to the latest Service Packs, something is changing making the program unstable. Unfortunately, I still do not know which windows update causes the problem. Acer/Winston should provide a fix to this issue, as some DLNA devices such as the Samsung PN50C590's are not able to read files from the server once the error starts.


    • Edited by Outbreak42 Thursday, June 3, 2010 1:22 PM
    Tuesday, June 1, 2010 6:08 PM
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    After testing several configurations, I have come to the conclusion that the root of the WIDMS crash is the removal of McAfee Total Protection AV. I was able to update all windows critical and non-critical KB releases and WIDMS was still functional. Then I removed McAfee, through both the removal tool and Add/Remove Programs; then WIDMS started to crash.

    Personally, I would still suggest to get rid of McAfee and then disable the WIDMS service through services.msc. You can install a better AV application such as Avast and streaming server application such as TwonkyMedia Server or Tversity.

    Thursday, June 3, 2010 1:18 PM
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    Thanks, that fixed my problem, was trying all kinds of things, should have searched first... LOL we techs always try first!

    Thursday, April 26, 2012 2:56 AM
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    Here is the solution: http://acer--uk.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/6476/~/widms.exe-crashes-on-easystore
    Thursday, January 3, 2013 12:59 AM