Installing application updates for the Cursor IDE on Windows takes a long time: 15+ minutes for the actual installation process. The update process is inconsistent and sometimes fails to complete, leaving the IDE in a broken state.
I would expect IDE updates to complete within a minute or two after the initial download/staging process, similar to how quickly VS Code or Zed updates install.
Steps to Reproduce
When an update is offered in Cursor IDE on Windows, click “Install”
Expected Behavior
The application update installs within two minutes
This morning when I got the update prompt and accepted, I had to manually download the installer and reinstall becasue the update process broke. The exe disappeared. When I reinstalled, all my settings, etc., were still there, so the problem appears limited to the missing the exe for me.
Hey @dvl, this isn’t anything on your end, and it’s an issue we’re tracking.
If Cursor won’t open after an update, reinstall from Cursor · Download. Your settings, extensions, and chat history are stored separately from the app, so nothing is lost.
To avoid it: fully quit Cursor (File > Exit) before clicking “Restart to Update”, and if an update looks stuck, check the taskbar for a hidden “Cursor Update” window waiting on a Retry/Cancel click. If your IT can exclude %LOCALAPPDATA%\Programs\cursor from real-time AV scanning, that clears the most common cause.
@ChrisD the macOS updater is a different path, so could you open a separate thread for that one?
Quick update on this one. We’ve changed how Cursor applies updates on Windows. If an update can’t finish (usually because something on the machine still has a file open in the Cursor install folder), it now rolls back and Cursor opens on the previous version, instead of being left unable to start. Recent versions all have this behavior.
Could you let us know whether updates have been installing normally for you lately, and whether the long install times are still happening? If they are, the cursor-inno-updater-*.log files from %TEMP% for a slow update would help us see where the time is going.
Thanks for the update. I haven’t noticed any fully failed updates (requiring a re-install) recently, which has been welcome.
I’m still seeing slow (15+ minute) update processes and have been digging into what’s happening on my local machine, since I only see this behavior on my work PC and not on my personal PC with my own Cursor account.
Thus far, based on the updater logs, I suspect the update itself is running fairly quickly, but something is hanging at the end of the process. I’m gathering more data on each update and hope to have something more concrete about my specific setup in the future.