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
    2015-12-15T04:38:57+00:00

    After troubleshooting this issue for a week and reading through this entire thread along with a dozen other threads and websites, I'm going to back to Windows 7. Windows 10 is beta garbage. But yay, we got Cortana. Microsoft, you're a bunch of idiots.

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  2. Anonymous
    2015-12-17T16:57:53+00:00

    This seems like an odd way to fix it, but it worked it soon as I did it.

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  3. Anonymous
    2015-12-19T08:00:18+00:00

    Beyond the fixes mentioned above, which do help to an extent, disabling one drive will help immensely. If you have your own backup plans, or your own file transfer methods (external drive, etc) then the cloud service really isn't necessary. Even my little laptop runs fine after performing the fixes mentioned above and adding that one additional step. Thanks for this

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  4. Anonymous
    2015-12-19T10:22:29+00:00

    Thanks you so much!!

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  5. Anonymous
    2015-12-19T17:09:40+00:00

    I lost two months trying to fix the problem. I almost tried everything, including registry changes, a second SATA hard disk, a clear reinstallation of Windows 10 etc.

    There's only one way to fix it definitely. Install Windows 10 on a SSD hard disk. This action solves the problem effectively.

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