[BUG] Cowork fails to install on Windows with redirected user profile (AppData on separate drive)

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?

Description:
Environment:

OS: Windows 11 Pro 64-bit
CPU: Intel Core Ultra 7 258V
RAM: 32GB
Claude Desktop version: 1.1.7714.0
AppData location: Redirected to D:\Profile\warach.ra\AppData\Roaming via Shell Folders registry (common in enterprise/domain environments)

What's wrong:
Cowork fails to set up on machines where the Windows user profile AppData folder is redirected to a separate drive. Three cascading issues occur:

Cross-device rename error (EXDEV) — Cowork downloads rootfs.vhdx to C:\Windows\Temp but attempts to rename/move it to D:\Profile\...\vm_bundles\claudevm.bundle\, which fails because Windows cannot rename files across drive letters. This causes the progress bar to loop indefinitely.
Sparse VHDX error (0xC03A001A) — When the download workaround is applied, the VHDX files are decompressed from .zst cache directly onto D:, which creates them as sparse files. Hyper-V refuses to boot sparse VHDX files, causing repeated VM boot failed errors.
SDK verification path mismatch — After resolving the above, the VM boots and connects successfully, but the Linux VM checks for the SDK .verified file at /D:/Profile/warach.ra/AppData/Roaming/Claude/claude-code-vm/2.1.78/.verified — a path that doesn't resolve correctly inside the Linux VM via the Plan9 share, even though the file exists on the Windows host.

What Should Happen?

Expected behavior:
Cowork should install and run correctly regardless of whether the Windows user profile AppData is on the system drive or a redirected drive.

Error Messages/Logs

2026-03-23 16:48:05 [error] [VM:start] Startup failed: Error: RPC error -1: SDK version 2.1.78 not verified at /D:/Profile/warach.ra/AppData/Roaming/Claude/claude-code-vm/2.1.78/.verified
    at Socket.<anonymous> (C:\Program Files\WindowsApps\Claude_1.1.7714.0_x64__pzs8sxrjxfjjc\app\resources\app.asar\.vite\build\index.js:167:21841)
    at Socket.emit (node:events:508:28)
    at addChunk (node:internal/streams/readable:559:12)
    at readableAddChunkPushByteMode (node:internal/streams/readable:510:3)
    at Readable.push (node:internal/streams/readable:390:5)
    at Pipe.onStreamRead (node:internal/stream_base_commons:189:23) {
  [stack]: [Getter/Setter],
  [message]: 'RPC error -1: SDK version 2.1.78 not verified at /D:/Profile/warach.ra/AppData/Roaming/Claude/claude-code-vm/2.1.78/.verified'
}
2026-03-23 16:48:05 [info] [VM:start] Skipping auto-reinstall (already attempted once)

Steps to Reproduce

Reproduces:
Any Windows machine where HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders\AppData points to a non-C: drive.
Logs attached:

Claude Model

None

Is this a regression?

No, this never worked

Last Working Version

_No response_

Claude Code Version

Claude Sonnet 4.6 (claude-sonnet-4-6)

Platform

Anthropic API

Operating System

Windows

Terminal/Shell

Windows Terminal

Additional Information

The Cowork installation progress bar does not complete (shows as ~97%).