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
    2016-08-12T22:26:29+00:00

    Sorry,  I appreciate the effort, but I don't have Chrome, or Skype installed.  My system still consistently stalls because of 100% usage, and when I look at resources in Task Manager, the hogs are my NAS Backup or something Microsoft.  

    Honestly, I don't think anyone has a clue what the software does anymore.

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  2. Anonymous
    2016-08-10T18:07:02+00:00

    I am having this issue after a silly unneeded install of AVG anti virus. I quickly uninstalled after realizing win 10 has defender. Now I can't get 100% disk to reliably stop, none of these solutions have helped. It will stop for a short period but now continues. Any suggestions from kind people based on AVG installation seeming to be the issue?

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  3. Anonymous
    2016-08-08T15:08:04+00:00

    Thank you very much, the approach worked very well for me. I earlier thought it was a hardware issue.

    I have never used mac, do such issues also occur on mac or they occur only on windows?

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  4. Anonymous
    2016-08-07T12:45:31+00:00

    Switching off windows firewall brought down disk activity to 0% :-)

    That's a new one.  With Anniversary edition or previous?  I updated a client to anniversary and got the problem (never had it before).  So either Microsoft left the fix (or fixes) out of anniversary (embarrassing) or its been a fundamental design issue from day1.

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  5. Anonymous
    2016-08-07T12:03:14+00:00

    Switching off windows firewall brought down disk activity to 0% :-)

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