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

I'm having the exact same issues. As amazing as it is I had to uninstall it for now.

I too see the usage identical to others in this thread. It’s worth mentioning that disabling the auto login feature allows you to restart to reclaim the Mem back as Claude Coworker only calls the vmmem upon launch. Until Anthropic can deploy a fix this has saved precious (and expensive) memory when needed for other tasks

Same issue here on the macOS version:
Claude 1.1.4498 (24f768) 2026-02-26T19:47:09.000Z

Claude boots an Apple VirtualMachine on startup using about 2,61 GB of memory. Personal account and Work account (with Cowork disabled)

same issue.
Windows 11 Home25H2
Claude 1.1.4498 (24f768) 2026-02-26T19:47:09.000Z
1854 MB Vmmem

Same issue here.

And i didn't even used Cowork once.

What really upset me is that you're forced to download 2go of rootfs.vhdx even if you don't need it.
I blocked Claude from transferring the 2 rootfs files from temp to their permanent folder so now it never lauches vmmem, but now each time i launch Claude it downloads 2go again..

Still working on it !

If you have any advices, i'll be glad to hear them :)

I gave up on blocking the download because you need to block bc.googleusercontent.com IPs and Claude won't connect without it apparently..

I removed the locks i put before for the rootfs to properly install in AppData/Roaming/Claude and i deactivated only the CoworkVMService (the display name is Claude) with this command in PowerShell :
Set-ItemProperty -Path "HKLM:\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\CoworkVMService" -Name "Start" -Value 4

Now i got this uselss 2go files but vmmem doesn't launches and i use the chat normally

EDIT : of course i'm doing this because i don't use cowork, if you are, don't do this ^^

Hi! Just throwing it out here, compiled a variety of community issues and fixes / prevention techniques in to 1 "toolkit", can be found here https://github.com/JesperLive/ClaudeFix - I hope it might be useful

Same issue for me. It is actually preventing me from using Claude to a large extent.

I need to switch to web version because of this isse. I need option that allow me to disable claude code and cowork

Same issue. Claude desktop needs to clearly describe the OS and hardware requirements for its desktop app. I understand claude code and cowork use a VM to perform tasks, but why does it init at startup? What is the high ram usage for while idle? Why not use a lighter weight virtualization platform?

Same here, I uninstalled app for now, using cc cli, hope it will be fixed soon.

Experiencing a significantly more severe variant of this on v1.1.9310.0
(MSIX, Windows 11 Pro, 32GB RAM). Claude Desktop consumes ~25GB RAM
immediately on launch with 10+ claude.exe processes — before opening
Cowork. Closing the app drops to near zero. Filed as new issue #[your
new issue number] with full details.

This is probably what's causing the crash since ~3 months ago (Sorry, I stopped subscribing.)

Well I came back, and it's definitely not working, can't use remote or co work, haven't had time to mess around with it. Thanks for making this GitHub issue

Windows 11 Insiders Pro x64
64GB memory ddrr5
ryzen 9800x3D
nvidia rtx 4070 super 12GB

This has just started happening for me in macOS even though I've been using Claude for months. I understand this VM is for the Cowork feature but I don't use it.

Claude is already a terrible Electron app that will happily eat 3GB+ of RAM, I don't need it using another ~3GB for a VM that is performing no function for me, and which the Claude UI gives me absolutely no control over. When I kill the VM it just respawns.

same, we need an option to turn this off, is there one?

2025 MacBook Air M4 (MacOS 26.3.1 (25D2128)) , 24GB. Launched Claude Desktop (had used Cowork before, Claude 1.3109.0 (35cbf6) 2026-04-16T20:32:01.000Z), didn't touch the Cowork tab. Virtual Machine Service for Claude showed up at 1.89GB, with total Claude Desktop processes around 3.2GB. Cmd+Q frees it all; relaunching auto-loads the VM again within a minute.

+1 for on-demand VM initialization.

Same issue here on M4 MacBook Pro. Claude Desktop spawns a process for virtual machines using >3GB of RAM, even with Cowork inactive. Haven't used it once.

still an issue, it restarts automatically after forcibly killing it - perhaps that's the simplest fix, have it so that it needs to be manually restarted (so users can just kill it directly)

This is still relevant. Installed Claude desktop for the first time on windows and my SSD started going crazy while creating the VM. This isn't something that should be happening without making it clear it's part of the system. Ideally being able to disable it would be great.

This may have something to do with WSL: Is your Claude Desktop working against a WSL repo or in WSL? (Or trying to run in Docker if Docker is configured to use WSL?)

I saw this when Cowork was released. In the early days, it used to boot up whenever you queried something in Cowork, and the initialization time was much higher.

Cowork was using a VM to securely perform operations on the relevant folder without affecting the original OS. They started booting it in advance, assuming everyone would be using Cowork, and this helped reduce the startup delay.

Same here:

MacBook Pro

13-Inch, M1, 2020

Chip: Apple M1
Memory: 16 GB
Startup disk: HD
Serial number: FVFF42G2Q05P
macOS: Tahoe 26.3

The VM should be optional , this is why i usually go to claude code cli and/or claude web for most of my work. Moreover, the vm_bundles takes 6Gb of disk space for "nothing" (i rarely use cowork).

<img width="724" height="220" alt="Image" src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/2f22052d-714d-403b-8f14-e90288f294a8" />

Developer > Open App Config File:

{
  "preferences": {
    "secureVmFeaturesEnabled": false
  }
}

In chat mode, you can also suffer from prompt injections, so this seems like it is needed there too?

I have a 16 GB Macbook Air M4 Base model with just 256 GB of storage. I can definitely recall that older versions of Claude Desktop did not make use of a VM. I don't need this for the chat functionality. I would very much like an option to turn this off.

Are we never going to see a fix because github actions labeled this as invalid?

Feature request: A per-device toggle to disable or opt out of Cowork, either as a setting within Claude Desktop or as a lightweight install option that excludes it.
Some machines don't need Cowork at all. Running Claude Desktop on an older PC (Intel Core i5-9500) for chat-only use, the background VM still launches on every startup and creates unnecessary memory and CPU pressure on lower-spec hardware where Cowork was never intended to be used.

It consistently takes up about 1.6GB of ram on macOS with the process name Virtual Machine Service for Claude. On lower-spec Macs (e.g. 8GB models), this is a significant share of available memory and noticeably degrades overall system performance during dev workflows. Claude Desktop app version: Claude 1.14271.0 (c8f4d8)