Why does cursor uninstall from my laptop every few days?

Support Bug Reports
1

cursor keeps uninstalling itself. Why?

After signing in the browser version, the dashboard is empty.

The only resolution is install cursor again and open the web app. It is a waste of time. And I noticed these issues have been raised since 2024! so why can’t this be fixed please?

This definitely cannot be a product feature so any reasonable resolution would be welcome.

Thanks!

5

Hey, thanks for the report. This is a known issue with the auto-updater on Windows. The update is applied by deleting the old version and installing the new one, and if Windows restarts or shuts down before the install phase finishes (even after you click Later), the binary gets removed and the new version doesn’t get installed. The good news is your settings and extensions aren’t lost. They’re stored in %APPDATA%\Cursor and %USERPROFILE%\.cursor, so only the app executable is missing.

How to restore it and prevent it:

  • Reinstall from Cursor · Download. Your settings and extensions will be picked up automatically.
  • Disable auto-update. In Settings, search for update.mode, set it to none, and update manually.
  • Before restarting or shutting down Windows, fully quit Cursor, including the tray icon.
  • If the machine has a corporate antivirus or EDR (Defender ASR, etc.), add an exclusion for the install folder %LOCALAPPDATA%\Programs\cursor or your custom path. Otherwise it can keep files locked during the update.

Can you confirm you’re on Windows? If so, this is almost certainly the same issue. I can’t share an ETA for a fix yet, but it’s on our radar.

About the empty dashboard in the browser. It shows account and usage data, not your projects, so an empty area there can be normal. If you see something clearly broken, send a screenshot and we can look at that separately.