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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

#251

Post by amazingamazing »

newobj wrote: post #99
z2 wrote: post #14

This all feels like a race where the model companies try to solve doing work locally in a way that doesn't suck, before the major operating systems companies figure out AI integration into their OS that doesn't suck. It also makes me wonder why Google which has both Gemini and Android can't figure this out, and if there are lessons to draw from that.

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)

People say this but it is wishful thinking. What are some actual metrics here we can use. Let’s compare google’s products with others.

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

#252

Post by bob1029 »

josh_p wrote: post #245

A lot of the commenters here say they’re running Claude or other harnesses inside a VM or with various permissions and levels of access. Am I weird or missing something using pi as my regular harness with gpt models or kimi in essentially yolo mode with mostly all system access? I haven’t experienced negative consequences of this.. yet.. and I don’t know I’d if I will? I don’t think I’m ever letting an agent run For…

I run totally unprotected with gpt5.4/5. I've been through thousands of dollars worth of API tokens through both copilot and custom harnesses that have local admin and arbitrary powershell access. I've never seen anything that could even remotely be construed as malicious.

I see a lot of people making a really big deal about safety and sandboxing while I'm busy getting shit done. If you can't handle your current source code checkout getting screwed up by a bad prompt, that's on you 1000%. Source control is the answer for anything information over time.

Unless you intentionally try to make a scene, these models aren't going to go fuck with your system shell or do anything you couldn't recover from in a few minutes. Connecting chatgpt to the enterprise sql server as sysadmin is not what I'm advocating for. This is another example of "on you, not the AI". There's a tiny amount of nuance you can apply at the edges that makes it easy to allow broad access with negligible risk.

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

#253

Post by ninjamar »

tom1337 wrote: post #5

I won't understand why Cowork isn't simply opt-in. It also installs a ~10GB vm bundle which you cannot remove https://www.reddit.com/r/ClaudeAI/comments/1rlc71n/claude_de...

I've found that the easiest way to 'remove' the bundle is to delete its contents, then change the permission on the folder, so Claude can't write to it.

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

#254

Post by Barbing »

pixl97 wrote: post #68
OsrsNeedsf2P wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find this analogy particularly humorous, as atomic bombs do not make for good excavators

Hey man, don't ruin my dreams. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Plowshare

Didn’t expect “Diplomatic issue with Sudan”

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

#255

Post by rmunn »

kelnos wrote: post #248
harrall wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just don’t think your opinion is shared by most people. Gmail is the most popular email service in the world, people are always telling me how they prefer Google Docs over everything else and their only competition is Microsoft. Yes it’s free but there is no other service that I rather switch to, and I actually pay for additional storage.

> Gmail is the most popular email service in the world That's because it's been around for quite a while, and for a long time it was the best webmail service. It's also free, unlike most alternatives. And switching to a new provider means a new email address, unless you're using a custom domain with Google Workspace (or whatever they call it these days), which is a small minority of personal accounts. (I gave up on G…

You're absolutely right that Gmail was the best webmail service when it launched, and for some time afterwards. How many people now commenting on HN remember when Gmail launched? Remember how revolutionary it was at the time? Every other email webapp, when you clicked on an email, would refresh the page. Gmail, when you clicked on an email, did not cause a browser navigation. It simply replaced the page contents with the contents of the email.

We're so used to setting webapps do this that we take this for granted, but Gmail was the first email webapp to do this. It's possible it was the first webapp, period, to do this; I feel like Gmail's use of XmlHttpRequest was innovative at the time.

Fast forward twenty years, and what about Gmail is innovative today? Nothing that I can think of. It's mediocre (there are lots of filtering improvements they could make that they aren't making, for example), and everything that made it good has been copied by other webmail clients. There's no particular reason except momentum to stay on Gmail.

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

#257

Post by literatepeople »

angry_octet wrote: post #235
maweaver wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know where's a good place to post a screenshot, but can confirm I get a dialog saying: > Get an app to open this 'x-apple.systempreferences' link > Your PC doesn't have an app that can open this link. Try looking for a compatible app in the Microsoft Store.

This is just a standard artefact of it being generated by Opus. A human needs to detect this problem and get it to handle the cross platform case.

The issue here isnt that an AI wrote the code, its that a human didn't spend a lot of time thinking about it. LLM's allow you to rush designs out the door with unprecedented speed.

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

#258

Post by no-name-here »

bmurphy1976 wrote: post #238
wvenable wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> GMail and Google Maps were revolutionary when they came out, sure, but the vast majority of Google's products now are... fine? at best? Is that... good? I mean take maps -- what more can possibly be done to that product that wouldn't just make it worse? It's done . The fact that's the default choice for mapping and just works is fantastic really. There aren't any competitors doing anything revolutionary either beca…

Maps is far from done. At the very least it's still riddled with usability issues. One bug-bear I have in particular: when I zoom into a very specifically chosen area, search for a Chinese restaurant, and it zooms out to half the state. Maddening. And it's rife with problems like this.

I’ve never experienced that issue - which platform/what location? I just tested and I was unable to replicate that issue.

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

#259

Post by no-name-here »

xahrepap wrote: post #168
xp84 wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not a fan of Google, and also not attached to Apple or Microsoft, so this isn't me trying to stan for Google, but I'd like to request that you give examples of what competing products are categorically better (and, by what metric(s) you're judging - code quality? stability? robust set of features?) -- for Gmail, Docs/Drive/etc, Google Calendar, Maps, Classroom, YouTube. As far as I can tell, if judged by the mark…

I think it’s a major feature gap that Gmail (paid or free) cannot create filters on headers. I also can’t do wildcard filters on “to” or “from”. For example, in my GApps I have it set up to route all emails not associated with a specific user to my primary user. So that it’s easier to make throwaway emails. I want to filter all to:`X.X@domain.tld` to a certain folder. No can do. It just feels restricted.

> I want to filter all to:`X.X@domain.tld`

You can filter based on the to: field, yes.

For many years I’ve been creating filters on free Gmail for to:, from:, subject:, etc. I set them up on desktop web.

Perhaps there is something more specific you’re trying to do?

> a major feature gap that Gmail (paid or free) cannot create filters on headers.

You can create filters on header fields like from:, to:, and subject:, so I am guessing you mean something different than “cannot create filters on headers”?

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

#260

Post by mrandish »

z2 wrote: post #14

This all feels like a race where the model companies try to solve doing work locally in a way that doesn't suck, before the major operating systems companies figure out AI integration into their OS that doesn't suck. It also makes me wonder why Google which has both Gemini and Android can't figure this out, and if there are lessons to draw from that.

Re: AI OS integration: I recently retired so most of my LLM use is just implementing and fixing fairly mundane OS and networking things along with light scripting for OS automation (AHK) and Home Assistant. So far, I just use web chat and cut-paste to the OS which is fine for little things but it starts to suck after the 15th round back and forth. For example, debugging intermittent Windows crash logs on my wife's laptop by doing multi-line PowerShell incantations from browser chat window, paste into PowerShell window. Cut multi-line error messages back to browser. Rinse / Repeat.

I'm leery about just giving an LLM free run of my laptop, but with reasonable restrictions on which app(s) it can access and how many steps it can do before checking in, and maybe even a throttle on how fast it works, I'd be fine (I'm not in a hurry and I can learn by watching it work at double-speed). It doesn't have to be mil-spec locked down, it's not like I have production code accessible or millions in crypto keys, the biggest downside would be a few hours hosing out and restoring the laptop, which would be annoying but not the end of the world.

I get those that say, "just spin up a VM and run it there", but I 'spin up a VM' rarely enough that the versions have changed and UXs drifted enough that it's exactly the kind of thing I'd actually want the LLMs help to do without me being a cut-paste bot. I'm mostly Windows at the moment and I don't understand why MSFT insists on spamming LLM features everywhere except the one place I'd not only use it, but pay for it. The usage model could be as simple and intuitive as a Zoom remote desktop share with a collaborator. That's already constrained and users have a mental model for the interaction pattern.

I asked Gemini earlier today to search recent user reviews of the latest 'drive my Windows desktop for me' and it reported that the capability is still slow, expensive, and prone to getting lost navigating the interface or interpreting window boundaries etc.

Anyone have any suggestions for my lightweight, casual use case?

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