Hey, thanks for the logs. They confirm exactly what we suspected: all four extension host processes start (PIDs 21204, 7476, 5048, 4068) but none of them send the ready message within 60s. There are no extension host output logs at all, which means the ext host process exists but never gets to run its bootstrap. This matches a known issue we are tracking on corporate Windows machines.
A couple of quick clarifications:
- The
dist/main.js (9850 bytes) you see is correct for Cursor 3.2.x. cursor-socket is bundled now, so a single main.js in dist/ is expected. The earlier advice about dist vs out was for older builds. So that is not the cause here.
cursor-socket not showing up in Task Manager is also expected. It runs inside the extension host process.
Since disabling Forcepoint, Trend Micro, and all corporate policies did not help, something at a lower level is still blocking the ext host from initializing. To narrow this down I need two things:
- Process Monitor trace (most useful)
Download Process Monitor: Process Monitor - Sysinternals | Microsoft Learn
- Open
procmon.exe as admin
- Filter > add filter:
Process Name contains cursor > Include
- Clear the buffer (the eraser icon), start capture
- Launch Cursor and wait about 90 seconds until the timeout error shows up
- Stop capture, File > Save > select All events + Native Process Monitor Format (PML)
- Compress the
.PML and share it, or upload it to a file share if it is too big
This will show what file, registry, and network calls each Cursor process makes, and where it hangs, before the timeout.
- Windows Event Viewer
Open eventvwr.msc and check these locations for events around the time you launched Cursor:
- Applications and Services Logs > Microsoft > Windows > AppLocker > EXE and DLL
- Applications and Services Logs > Microsoft > Windows > CodeIntegrity > Operational
- Windows Logs > Application (filter by source: Application Error, .NET Runtime)
Export any matching events as .evtx or paste them here. Even if your IT team removed standard policies, WDAC or AppLocker can still be enforced via group policy or MDM and silently block process initialization without any visible UI errors.
- Quick question
Is Microsoft Defender Application Guard, Credential Guard, or any virtualization-based security (VBS) enabled on this machine? Financial institutions often have these on by default. You can check with:
Get-CimInstance -ClassName Win32_DeviceGuard -Namespace root\Microsoft\Windows\DeviceGuard
The team is aware of this issue and tracking it on corporate Windows setups, but there is no ETA for a fix yet. The procmon trace would be a meaningful data point because most reports do not capture what is actually blocking the process at the OS level. Let me know what you find.