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Claude Desktop spawns 1.8 GB Hyper-V VM on every launch, even for chat-only use

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Re: Claude Desktop spawns 1.8 GB Hyper-V VM on every launch, even for chat-only use

#201

Post by not_a_bot_4sho »

scuff3d wrote: post #190
newobj wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google is historically terrible as a product company (and has succeeded in spite of that) As their technical innovations become less of a moat (we're already there) they won't be able to win on engineering alone (they are no longer winning on engineering alone)

On a semi-related note, I bought a Pixel phone about a month ago, and I'm shocked by how unpolished it is. I've had so many little annoyances pop up, issues I never had on other android phones. Keyboard hiding/appearing when it's not suppose to, bluetooth dropping, WiFi dropping, network switching taking forever, screen becoming unresponsive... It's mostly all small things, but they really start to add up after a whi…

Interesting. My pixel experience has been the opposite; very polished and pleasant. 10A. Wonder why the variance?

Re: Claude Desktop spawns 1.8 GB Hyper-V VM on every launch, even for chat-only use

#202

Post by lelanthran »

sddsfsdfsd2 wrote: post #35
amelius wrote: post #11

Why are the UIs of the AI companies all broken in multiple ways?

They are moving at breakneck speed deploying on scales most of us can't even imagine. They are working in a space that's completely unexplored where getting information as quickly as possible is preferred above iterating on some feature until it's "done" while your competitor has released fifteen other features, all sucky, but one of which turns out to be a killer and makes a billion bucks overnight.

> They are moving at breakneck speed deploying on scales most of us can't even imagine. They are working in a space that's completely unexplored where getting information as quickly as possible is preferred above iterating on some feature until it's "done" while your competitor has released fifteen other features, all sucky, but one of which turns out to be a killer and makes a billion bucks overnight.

Not on the client, they're not. It's a chatbot as glue between different backend systems.

Re: Claude Desktop spawns 1.8 GB Hyper-V VM on every launch, even for chat-only use

#203

Post by dbmikus »

danudey wrote: post #200
dbmikus wrote: post #172

Understand that it is annoying to spin up a heavyweight VM whenever running Claude Desktop, but I actually think per-app + agent virtualization is the future. Next version of an app is: 1. micro VM 2. agent on the VM 3. software bundled into the VM Then the agent is totally sandboxed at the hardware virtualization level. It can use the software tools on the VM or write its own. VM can control which software is "froze…

Not sure if this is deliberate or not but you're describing Docker Sandbox extremely closely. https://www.docker.com/products/docker-sandboxes/

Yeah, Docker Sandbox is in the right direction. But there's a lot of parts that are still not ironed out yet.

How do you package a Docker Sandbox up into an app that can expose UI widgets, with an agent hiding behind them? What widgets is the agent allowed to modify? How do you run a workflow like "give agent all these files, modify the files, and do changeset management on the modifications?"

I'm not 100% sure which part of these will be baked into the application standard format, and which are orthogonal. But current way of packaging up and running these agents doesn't feel right.

I think about this a lot because my startup is building cloud VMs for agents to do code-gen and auto-validate changes, so we have a workflow like:

    1. git repo, skills, CLI tools, biz context goes in
    2. agent iterates against running dev environment
    3. changes go out into git PRs and CI
I think this type of app/agent workflow will expand outside coding use-cases.

Re: Claude Desktop spawns 1.8 GB Hyper-V VM on every launch, even for chat-only use

#204

Post by dbmikus »

sudosteph wrote: post #177
dbmikus wrote: post #172

Understand that it is annoying to spin up a heavyweight VM whenever running Claude Desktop, but I actually think per-app + agent virtualization is the future. Next version of an app is: 1. micro VM 2. agent on the VM 3. software bundled into the VM Then the agent is totally sandboxed at the hardware virtualization level. It can use the software tools on the VM or write its own. VM can control which software is "froze…

Yep, I've been using a local vm-centric agent setup for about 3 months, and it works great. I think there is also value in the fact that with a local VM, you can have the same public IP address, so you're not relying on an EC2 EIP that may be blacklisted somewhere.

Yes, running locally certainly helps if you want your sandboxed AI to be able to use the internet without getting blackholed by Cloudflare

Re: Claude Desktop spawns 1.8 GB Hyper-V VM on every launch, even for chat-only use

#205

Post by elxr »

esseph wrote: post #74
elxr wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm obviously not just prompting agents for everything. What are you on about? Why would I build my little web-apps and backends in the cloud when I can run things faster locally?

> Why would I build my little web-apps and backends in the cloud when I can run things faster locally? Because in a lot of companies, your machine is actually just a portal to a remote desktop.

Not in my personal experience. Never been in that situation, and I've worked in full-stack, FE, and BE teams.

Re: Claude Desktop spawns 1.8 GB Hyper-V VM on every launch, even for chat-only use

#206

Post by wiseowise »

stouset wrote: post #173
Dylan16807 wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"defined their product category" means it used to be outstanding, not that it currently is outstanding. "among the most popular" doesn't need either of those to be true.

As a concrete example, Windows defined the product category. And it is still the most popular desktop operating system in the world by far. Few here would argue that it’s an outstanding product.

I hate Windows with passion and can still acknowledge that it is an outstanding product.

Re: Claude Desktop spawns 1.8 GB Hyper-V VM on every launch, even for chat-only use

#207

Post by shimman »

Hammershaft wrote: post #151
spott wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which products are outstanding in their categories? Gmail isn't outstanding, search isn't outstanding, maps isn't outstanding. They are all pretty par for the course. Google used to be outstanding... but I'm not sure of a single product they have that is outstanding (def: significantly better than the competition) anymore. On the other hand I rarely use any google products these days, so maybe I'm not the one to be j…

Has hacker news lost it? Maps & Gmail & Search all have plenty of accumulating flaws... but they also completely defined their product category and today are among the most popular software products ever made.

Wow I wonder why maps and gmail are extremely popular by the company that controls the largest browser, search, android, and advertising. It's based solely on their merits and not abusing their monopolistic position to thwart competition right?

Re: Claude Desktop spawns 1.8 GB Hyper-V VM on every launch, even for chat-only use

#208

Post by adastra22 »

jstummbillig wrote: post #108
newobj wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google is historically terrible as a product company (and has succeeded in spite of that) As their technical innovations become less of a moat (we're already there) they won't be able to win on engineering alone (they are no longer winning on engineering alone)

How are Google products anything but outstanding in their categories? What are you comparing to?

Other than search, in its heyday of the early 00’s, every google product success was either a 20% time project (e.g. Gmail) or an acquisition (YouTube) or a direct clone of someone else’s working product (android).

Re: Claude Desktop spawns 1.8 GB Hyper-V VM on every launch, even for chat-only use

#209

Post by zelphirkalt »

scruple wrote: post #66
jubilanti wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You say that as if somehow the trend for cross platform desktop apps to be ridiculously bloated bundles of browser overlays is new? What major cross platform app isn't based on Electron or Tauri? Slack, Discord, VS Code, Teams, Notion...

You'd think Artificial Intelligence could be used to find a better path forward, alas.

Now I only need non-engineers to understand this difference in architecture and design decisions, and I will have a job.

Re: Claude Desktop spawns 1.8 GB Hyper-V VM on every launch, even for chat-only use

#210

Post by rvz »

danudey wrote: post #199
rvz wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct and they have no idea what they are doing.

I mean, that's kind of a stretch given how popular and well-regarded Claude Code is at this point. They're not perfect but they seem to be the best out there at this point.

> I mean, that's kind of a stretch given how popular and well-regarded Claude Code is at this point.

Popularity here is irrelevant.

Just because the software is "popular", it does not always mean that the quality of the engineering and their choices is the best. Objectively, it's the model that everyone regards as the best rather than their desktop apps or the harness that drives it.

That is why people want to use the model and their subscription in other harnesses.

In this case, the desktop app is evidently poor with very embarrassing bugs and glitches like this and I expect well funded startups with the best engineers releasing very high quality code.

Obviously, this is not the case at Anthropic.

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