[BUG] Cowork Setup on Windows 11 Home stuck, without any VM logs [1.1.8629]

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?

What's Wrong?

Cowork is permanently stuck on "Setting up Claude's workspace" on Windows 11 Home. The progress bar stays near completion indefinitely (2+ hours) with no error message displayed and no way to cancel or retry from the UI.

What Should Happen?

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Expected Behavior

Cowork workspace should complete setup and become usable, or display a clear error message explaining why it cannot proceed (e.g. unsupported platform).

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Actual Behavior

• Progress bar stuck near completion (appears ~80–90%) for 2+ hours
• No error message or failure indicator shown in the UI
• No cowork_vm_node.log generated in %AppData%\Claude\logs\ — only chrome-native-host.log exists
• No vm_bundles folder created in %AppData%\Claude\
• Only cowork-svc visible in Task Manager — no CoworkVMService or VM-related processes
• App restart and waiting do not resolve the issue

This suggests the VM setup is silently failing before any logs are created — possibly due to platform detection incorrectly blocking Windows 11 Home, or the VM bundle never being downloaded.

Error Messages/Logs

Unable to find any logs generated for cowork in the appData folder

Steps to Reproduce

1. Install latest Claude Desktop on Windows 11 Home from claude.ai/download
2. Navigate to the Cowork tab
3. Observe: progress bar appears and gets stuck near completion indefinitely
4. Check %AppData%\Claude\logs\ — no cowork_vm_node.log present
5. Check %AppData%\Claude\ — no vm_bundles folder present
6. Check Task Manager — only cowork-svc running, no VM processes

Claude Model

None

Is this a regression?

No, this never worked

Last Working Version

_No response_

Claude Code Version

1.1.8629

Platform

Anthropic API

Operating System

Windows

Terminal/Shell

PowerShell

Additional Information

Environment

• OS: Windows 11 Home
• Claude Desktop version: 1.1.8629 (befdfc)
• Virtualization status: [check Task Manager > Performance > CPU > Virtualization: Enabled]

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Related Issues

Similar to #36392 (Windows 11 Home) and #37858 (Windows 10 Pro) but distinct in that no logs are generated at all, suggesting an earlier failure point.

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Additional Notes

Regular Claude chat works perfectly. This is specific to Cowork workspace setup.