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
    2016-01-31T22:02:15+00:00

    Yes the problem started up for me again also, sigh.  Disabled everything in task manager/ startup programs, like nVidia.  The only thing left enabled is my firewall and that's not going anywhere, even though it has a high startup impact.

    The only thing that comes to mind is if you upgraded or reset recently like I did and still have a Windows old folder in C drive.  Could that be it--System and Compressed Memory, Service Host and Windows Explorer rummaging around in that folder at startup?  I can't test this theory right now either as the folder is too large for the recycle bin.  I can't delete it.

    Windows 10 is really on my nerves right now, I swear.

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  2. Anonymous
    2016-01-31T14:57:39+00:00

    As I said, I believe my HDD is a hybrid, with the OS on the SSD portion. However, the 100% usage issue occurs on the conventional platter. Edit: Having said that, I'm not altogether sure that it's true. I thought the SSD showed up as a separate partition with the spinny bit used for data as another but a) I don't think that's how they're represented and b) I don't think that would be the best way for them to work. So what I said was probably garbage. That apart, I'm still getting the same problem. I've tried disabling and re-enabling various background security features in Iobit Advanced System Care and AVG, ditto both superfetch in the OS and prefetch in Chrome, and so on and on. Has anyone tried reverting to Win 8.1?

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  3. Anonymous
    2016-01-31T09:24:10+00:00

    ALL the instructions have been followed still the problem dont  get resolved.......

    any more instructions 2 make disk usage low...

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  4. Anonymous
    2016-01-30T21:54:35+00:00

    Well, I wish I could make the "warm up the router/modem" in my previous post disappear but oh well....

    Still was getting 95% and higher at startup though not as prolonged.  After reading some articles, tried setting startup of Windows Explorer from "Automatic" to "Manual" via task manager/services msc.  There, that did it.  Now disc use is a high of 30-40% and goes right down, but I have a bare bones machine at the moment.

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  5. Anonymous
    2016-01-29T20:09:16+00:00

    I had this issue and it seems some others encountered the bug. What fixed it for me is going to settings, system, notifications, and turning off "show me tips about Windows." I believe that was the one causing problems, though I turned all of them off besides the app notifications. System processes went back down after a restart and haven't spiked since.

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