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
    2016-03-18T14:50:11+00:00

    Hi Neelesh, 

    My system starts at 100%, then actually goes down to almost nothing, (2% right now), after 5 minutes.  The problem for me is that I currently use Windows Defender as my Antivirus program.   

    http://www.howtogeek.com/225385/what%E2%80%99s-the-best-antivirus-for-windows-10-is-windows-defender-good-enough/

    What Antivirus program are you using instead or Defender?  From a practical standpoint the above article says Defender catches 95% of all viruses.

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  2. Anonymous
    2016-03-08T17:34:03+00:00

    I don't have Google Chrome or Skype installed on my machine and the Disk Usage is still at 100%. This recommendation is bogus. Microsoft has no idea how to fix this problem, that's why its taken this long to address it.

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  3. Anonymous
    2016-02-10T21:18:13+00:00

    holy **** **** it worked when NOTHING ELSE did

    thank youuuuuuu

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  4. 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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  5. Anonymous
    2016-01-29T01:06:16+00:00

    have you checked the disk controller on the device manager? whatever system you are running, if the disk controller driver states as Standard SATA with driver date 2006 and version 10.x

    your disk is going to 100%.

    install a better driver manually from the chipset manufacturers website. Ive fixed this problem on 5 PCs with or without Skype and various hardware configuration.

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