Fixing 100% disk usage in Windows 10 with Chrome and Skype running

Anonymous
2015-08-16T12:25:27+00:00

How to fix 100% disk usage in Windows 10

This is caused by a common combination of Skype as well Google Chrome. Similar issue with other programs could also cause 100% disk usage. To fix this do the following:

Google Chrome:

In Google Chrome, go to Settings > Show Advanced Settings ... > Privacy > Prefetch resources to load pages more quickly

and untick it. See Figure-1 below:

Figure-1

Skype:

Make sure you have exited Skype and it is not running in the taskbar (if it is running in the taskbar then quit it).

Open Windows Explorer and open the following folder:

"C:\Program Files (x86)\Skype\Phone"

Now right click "Skype.exe" file and then click "Properties" and open the "Security" tab.

Click the "Edit" button and then highlight "ALL APPLICATION PACKAGES" and place a tick in the "Write" box.

Click "Apply" and then "OK" and then "OK" again. See Figures-2 to Figure-6 below:

This is it, now run Skype and check the Disk Usage in Task Manager and it will no longer show you 100% disk usage anymore:-

I hope this helps people. I spent a long time in finding a solution to this problem.

Windows for home | Windows 10 | Devices and drivers

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  1. Anonymous
    2016-01-02T17:16:34+00:00

    WOW, I have spent a lot of time troubleshooting my Win 10 for this issue, and your post was on point! Why isn't this being corrected on an update? Seems like the perfect storm for alot of wasted time. Thanks for the great advice.

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  2. Anonymous
    2015-12-23T23:56:50+00:00

    For me Google chrome setting and also quitting the "adobe creative cloud" worked. It went straight from 97% to 0-10%.  Thanks.

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  3. Anonymous
    2015-12-23T23:54:01+00:00

    Thank you, that took it down some. I really appreciate it.

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  4. Anonymous
    2015-12-08T08:36:25+00:00

    Hi, 

    You can try with this..

    Go to Settings, Update & Security, Windows Update, Advanced Options, Choose How updates are delivered and set the setting for "Updates from more than one place" to Off.

    Dropped my 100% disk utilization to 5-7%. 

    /Dan

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  5. Anonymous
    2015-12-07T15:34:37+00:00

    Go back to Win 7.  The most stable of their operating systems.  I lost an entire week trying to fight the battle.  Even 3 hours of Microsoft support couldn't help.  Make sure you all set a recovery point if you dare to install Win 10!!!  It works great on our laptops by my HP Quad Core with 24 Gigs of RAM & 1 TB HD was no match for their crappy code.   I think the more powerful the machine the worse the op sys is.

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