Claude Desktop spins up a VM without no way of stopping it

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.

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.

As long as the VM closes when the application closes, I don’t see too much of an issue with this design decision.

It seems like the VM is a core part of how you use the application.

Back in the day, personalization / customization was all the rage, as it lets the user feel the control, power and freedom. Now it's the opposite. It's about not letting user to have any control at all. I can't delete some junk apps from my phone and mac, because they are "system" apps. As a non-geek, I can't deal with complexity of the browser and account settings to stop it from what is doing. We are at the mercy of the machines.

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 have two friends that are using coding agents on Windows, which was surprising to learn.

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 Claude CLI vs Claude Desktop, etc?

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.

Classic Anthropic, this comes across as LLM coded nonsense.

Isn’t it good that it spins up without no way of stopping it? Why would it be a problem that we do have a way of stopping it?

I didn’t get a screenshot of this, but I just found a really pointed example of Anthropics lack of craft / rush to build. If you open Claude on Windows, and click Dispatch (under cowork) to start that up, it will tell you that you need permissions windows doesn’t have. When you click the buttons for those permissions, it has broken links to macOS system preferences. I really encourage someone to try it and post the images as a reply as I am writing this from my phone.

How come Claude Code still hasn't triaged and fixed this? Feed it the bug link, someone.

They must not have used Fable 5 to vibecode that part of Claude Desktop, VMs are strictly forbidden high stakes cybersecurity work.

the vm makes sense for cowork but no off switch is weird. a visible sandbox on/off toggle would do more for trust than any safety blogpost imo

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

The weird thing is that this is probably a performance optimization for quick responses when a user asks a question.

My agent harness spins up a VM too, but it spins up on demand, cools down in 10 minutes and warms up when I focus back on the app.

The files it works on actually lives in a mount.

People take more time to type a prompt than the VM takes to spin up on a fast machine and on a slow machine, the cooldown naturally frees RAM back to the machine.

i had to uninstall it due to the vm taking around 12G of disk, never touched Cowork. didn't realize they were also launching it

"without no way" of stopping it?

It's becoming self-aware! Quick, lock down the nuclear codes!

Please edit the title.

Currently "Claude Desktop spins up a VM without no way of stopping it"

Should be "Claude Desktop spins up a VM with no way of stopping it"

I think the title should be changed. Either with no way of stopping it, or without any way of stopping it.

I've stopped using cc a while ago, because it always comes up with new surprises like that.

it took up 12gb on mine

[flagged]

So a company which has access to practically unlimited tokens and their best models makes crappy software. Huh who would've thought?

/s