Cowork VM not provisioned after clean reinstall — "Virtualization is not enabled" despite Hyper-V working
Preflight Checklist
- [x] I have searched existing issues and this hasn't been reported yet
- [x] This is a single bug report (please file separate reports for different bugs)
- [x] I am using the latest version of Claude Code
What's Wrong?
Cowork was working fine until a Windows disk cleanup removed VM-related files. After a full clean reinstall (uninstall app, delete %APPDATA%\Claude, delete %LOCALAPPDATA%\Claude, restart, fresh install from claude.ai/download), the Cowork tab shows "Virtualization is not enabled" and blocks all input. The reinstall never recreated the CoworkVMService or any VM files.
What Should Happen?
Fresh install should provision CoworkVMService and download VM bundle automatically.
Error Messages/Logs
Steps to Reproduce
Have a working Cowork installation on Windows
Run Windows disk cleanup which removes VM temp files
Cowork breaks with "Virtualization is not enabled"
Uninstall, delete all Claude AppData folders, restart, reinstall
VM service never recreated
Claude Model
Opus
Is this a regression?
Yes, this worked in a previous version
Last Working Version
_No response_
Claude Code Version
2.1.47
Platform
Anthropic API
Operating System
Windows
Terminal/Shell
PowerShell
Additional Information
systeminfo confirms "A hypervisor has been detected"
sc query CoworkVMService returns nothing
No .vhdx files on disk (only Docker)
No vm_bundles or VM folders anywhere in Claude directories
Cowork settings has no reinstall/reset option
6 Comments
Same issue here. Windows 10/11, Hyper-V enabled and confirmed working (systeminfo shows "A hypervisor has been detected"), but no Claude folder in %APPDATA% or %LOCALAPPDATA%, no CoworkVMService, Cowork tab shows "Virtualization is not enabled". Clean reinstall didn't help.
Same issue here! All my Cowork chats gone. This is just awful.
<img width="1345" height="234" alt="Image" src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/5a966a13-0171-46fb-8946-423b72ff89c7" />
Same here, even tried to solve it with Claude Code. Hope we can get this resolved soon:
Symptoms:
Cowork tab shows: "Virtualization is not enabled. Claude's workspace requires hardware virtualization (Hyper-V). Enable virtualization in your BIOS/UEFI settings, then restart."
All other parts of Claude work normally – only Cowork is broken
Troubleshooting performed:
Verified Hyper-V is enabled in Windows features
Ran systeminfo – confirmed: "A hypervisor has been detected"
Ran Get-NetNat – returned empty (no NAT rules exist)
Ran sc query CoworkVMService – returned nothing (service does not exist)
Attempted clean reinstall: deleted %APPDATA%\Claude and %LOCALAPPDATA%\Claude, restarted, reinstalled from claude.ai/download
Ran sc query CoworkVMService again after reinstall – still nothing
Installed WSL2 + Ubuntu on suggestion from Claude Code – did not help
Root cause: The installer fails to create CoworkVMService and the required Hyper-V VM after the update. Reinstalling does not fix this – the VM provisioning step is simply never executed.
Current status: No known workaround. This is a confirmed bug introduced by the latest Cowork update, with multiple reports filed on GitHub (issues #27316 and #27350).
It was working great last night and then all of a sudden it stopped this morning upon a reboot.
<img width="1680" height="786" alt="Image" src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/9d897331-bb7e-47da-b509-f2a05c195030" />
Closing as duplicate of #27316 which was very rapidly fixed in the v1.1.3963 release
This issue has been automatically locked since it was closed and has not had any activity for 7 days. If you're experiencing a similar issue, please file a new issue and reference this one if it's relevant.