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
    2016-05-12T17:28:55+00:00

    Like Emily, I don't have Skype or Firefox running.  I tried other solutions I found online:

    • Increase the size of the paging file
    • Disable SuperFetch and Windows Search in Services
    • Disable Prefetch in the registry

    Nothing worked.

    I moved the paging file to my non-system drive, and I increased its size to about 5x the recommended size.  Disk usage on the system drive is now in low single digits when I haven't asked the computer to do something, and the drive with the paging file looks totally bored.  My machine is back to its awesome former state.

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  2. Anonymous
    2016-05-06T06:14:54+00:00

    Hi alex51865,

    The only thing that I didn't like about this was adjusting the system performance to best performance.  I found that the quality of the print of letters on my screen was greatly reduced.  So I set it back.

    I have now turned off so many features.  Not only the ones that you have described, but a couple of others too.  Right now, the system is performing satisfactorily.  But one has to wonder how Microsoft can design a system that performs so poorly when all features are turned on.  Either this is all unnecessary bloatware (probably) or there is a bug.  But they really need to look at this.

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  3. Anonymous
    2016-05-05T15:52:55+00:00

    The bug that I have only appears with zero  disk usage which switches on a false  100 % disk usage alert and hangs the PC

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  5. Anonymous
    2016-04-26T09:49:38+00:00

    it actually worked.. First time a MS solution worked, huh.

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