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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

#71

Post by inigyou »

jubilanti wrote: post #54
inigyou wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They vibecoded it, and admitted as much. Once it was able to self-vibecode, that's all they did. That's why it's written in React and uses gigabytes of RAM as a chat client.

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...

Claude Code is uniquely stupid in that it uses React to power a non-Electron terminal app.

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

#72

Post by duped »

nathanyz wrote: post #10

The VM itself is for Claude Cowork which does all work within the VM sandbox. That doesn't help answer why they spin it up immediately and don't have a way to disable it though. Just the "why it exists" question.

Anthropic has pretty consistently been shitty about how they roll out their software. Extreme lack of engineering rigor and thoughtfulness.

The answer is probably as simple as "no one thought not to do that."

---

I know different people work on these things so I can't do more than guess about how engineering culture cuts across teams, but given the sheer amount of carelessness and sloppiness in Anthropic's software I have to imagine they're burning investor money in training and inference because the code to do it is as bad as the rest of their software.

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

#73

Post by dboreham »

jacobgold wrote: post #61

I have two friends that are using coding agents on Windows, which was surprising to learn. Edit: yes, with WSL2 I believe in both cases. I would have assumed almost everyone would get a Mac/Linux computer to use coding agents because Unix is their "native" platform. It's Bash tool calls all the way down. Does anyone know a source for reliable data on what coding agent apps devs are using? How many are using Code Clau…

Are you sure they're not using WSL2 (which is Linux, not Windows)?

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

#74

Post by esseph »

elxr wrote: post #59
reactordev wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If everything is in the cloud and you are just prompting agents to code for you, what exactly is “a developer machine”?

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.

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

#75

Post by tom_ »

echelon_musk wrote: post #57
tom_ wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This question is answered by the post? There is reportedly actually no way of stopping it happen. Perhaps the poster had a brain fart while typing it. Maybe they speak a different dialect of English from you.

There's no dialect of English in which this is correct.

That could be true, but I don't think I'd bet on it myself.

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

#76

Post by asveikau »

jacobgold wrote: post #61

I have two friends that are using coding agents on Windows, which was surprising to learn. Edit: yes, with WSL2 I believe in both cases. I would have assumed almost everyone would get a Mac/Linux computer to use coding agents because Unix is their "native" platform. It's Bash tool calls all the way down. Does anyone know a source for reliable data on what coding agent apps devs are using? How many are using Code Clau…

Wsl2.0 is literally a Linux vm built into windows. I imagine some people are using that.

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

#77

Post by SpaceManNabs »

tkcranny wrote: post #20

I’ve stopped using Claude on the desktop, just because of how slow the app is to start up and interact with. It’s an absolute clunker; I’m mystified why they can’t ship something that works well given their rhetoric about ai.

It is surprising that the Claude web app lags pretty easily when using either chromium or firefox on ubuntu linux. Chats that delay my laptop work without issues on my ipad or iphone using the app.

The web app is definitely a bit of a problem. IF there is a native app on desktop or if claude cli is much faster, i haven't tried them.

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

#78

Post by jrochkind1 »

bostik wrote: post #70
jrochkind1 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're not going to give Claude access to anything on your machine, why are you using Desktop instead of web chat? (Real question, I don't use these much!) If you are, obviously you need the VM.

At least in a corporate environment, Claude Desktop is a pretty decent compromise. Preconfigured internally deployed MCP servers and third-party connectors make many of the necessary integrations relatively easy to control. I use Claude Code CLI myself (inside a VM, to isolate it from the host) for >90% of my needs. For the remaining fraction - email scours, cloud drive searches, other third-party connections - the d…

i wonder if they are running the proxy for external network connections in the VM.

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

#79

Post by [deleted] »

jrochkind1 wrote: post #47
nathanyz wrote: post #10

The VM itself is for Claude Cowork which does all work within the VM sandbox. That doesn't help answer why they spin it up immediately and don't have a way to disable it though. Just the "why it exists" question.

If you're not going to give Claude access to anything on your machine, why are you using Desktop instead of web chat? (Real question, I don't use these much!) If you are, obviously you need the VM.

[deleted]

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

#80

Post by lloeki »

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.

> why Google which has both Gemini and Android can't figure this out,

Not the first time an incumbent has four aces in hand and appears to be entirely unable to make anything of it.

> and if there are lessons to draw from that

Lesson 1: doing shit is hard

Lesson 2: money rules so milking the cow wins over taking the slightest risk

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