# Disk Cleanup in Windows 8.1 running by itself



## CaptainTrips (Apr 19, 2014)

Hi,

I'm having a strange problem. If I let my PC idle for around 5 minutes, the disk cleanup utility pops up and analyzes my PC, then leaves the window open showing what could be cleaned up, etc. However, if I move the mouse, the window vanishes.

I'm running Win 8.1, and I have two hard drives, a 250GB SSD and a 1.5TB HD. I just installed the 1.5TB drive today, so that might have something to do with it, but to be honest, I don't recall if this problem started before or after I installed the 1.5GB drive.

This is happening every 5 minutes or so - makes it hard to enjoy a movie or anything that would leave the computer idle. I Googled a lot and couldn't find anything. I've run disk cleanup by hand and let it do its thing for both drives, but it didn't help.

Any ideas? It's getting annoying. I can't even drag it off to the side of the screen because it vanishes the moment I move the mouse. If I can't figure it out, I guess I can unplug the 1.5TB and see if that fixes it. Then I will at least know the culprit.


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## johnb35 (Apr 19, 2014)

Check your windows task scheduler to see if disk cleanup is set to run at specified times.  Delete the task if its there.


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## CaptainTrips (Apr 20, 2014)

I just checked. There's quite a few items in there, but the only ones that I can think of that could be causing this are "idle maintenance" "manual maintenance" "manual maintenance" and/or the "maintenance configurator"

From what I just Googled, it seems that the maintenance configurator tends to re-enable the other tasks even if they are manually disabled. I guess I will go down them one by one and disable each to see if one of them works. I'm just hesitant because it seems like these should be enabled. As well, I can always re-enable them for a couple days every month or so if it really becomes a problem.

Thanks for the tip.


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## johnb35 (Apr 20, 2014)

If you run these every month then its killing your hard drive.  Unless you do a lot of installing and uninstalling programs, disk cleanup shouldn't be ran but every few months.  You can run a temp file cleaner program such as Ccleaner every couple weeks though.  Can you post a screenshot of your task scheduler?  

The only task I have listed in mine is the adobe flash updater.


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## CaptainTrips (Apr 20, 2014)

These tasks were set to go off every day or so. I'm new to Windows 8, so I don't know if these are part of Windows normal operations or not, and if it would be wise or not to disable them. Is your "Active Tasks" blank except for the flash updater?

I'd like a nice list of what each of these maintenance tasks do, but there doesn't seem to be any.

Anyway, here's a few screenshots:
http://imgur.com/O0LUUzX
http://imgur.com/fXBAd5F
http://imgur.com/UmJ6VSa


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## johnb35 (Apr 20, 2014)

Ok, I went to the same task schedular you are using as I'm using windows 7 not 8, I have 2 listed.  Avast emergency update and adobe flash player updater. I would definately delete those others.

What do you see when you use windows explorer and navigate to C:windows/tasks?  This is mine.  The only actual task is the top line item.


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## CaptainTrips (Apr 20, 2014)

I might be onto something. I found that I can alter when the tasks start after being idle for X amount of time. I bumped em all up, so I will go back to my movie and see if I am interrupted again in five minutes.

Here's a screenshot of my C:\Windows\tasks\


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## johnb35 (Apr 20, 2014)

You can do what you want, but i'm still suggesting to delete those tasks.  You can always run the disk cleanup manually every couple months.


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## CaptainTrips (Apr 20, 2014)

johnb35 said:


> You can do what you want, but i'm still suggesting to delete those tasks.  You can always run the disk cleanup manually every couple months.



Well, it was due to you that I poked around in the Task Scheduler. I hadn't thought to do that before, and subsequently found the idle time settings, which so far seems to be working. Fingers crossed.

Credit given where credit is due. Thanks


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## S.T.A.R.S. (Apr 20, 2014)

There were people who were having the same issue on XP also.
All they had to do is to open the task dialog and turn it off:





And believe it or not,to some of them this also caused disk cleanup to run...


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## CaptainTrips (Apr 27, 2014)

Sorry for the delay in replying to this thread. I figured out who the culprit was. It was the scheduled task "Regular Maintenance."  

I figured it out by going though the tasks one by one and turning off the option of the task stopping if my computer wakes from being idle. This kept the disk cleanup from vanishing the moment I moved my mouse, thereby letting me know which one it was.

I tried disabling all of them, but the Maintenance Configurator would not let me disable itself, stating that I needed permission to disable it, even running as administrator. I also believe that the maintenance configurator was responsible for re-enabling the other three other tasks after I disabled them.

So instead of disabling Regular Maintenance, I deleted it. Probably a bad idea, being that I have no idea what it did in addition to running disk cleanup. It also caused a lot of hard drive activity - something I would like to avoid on my SSD, so I guess that's another plus to deleting it.

So here's hoping that it's "fixed." I'll report back in a few days.


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