[BUG]

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?

[BUG] Claude Desktop fails to launch on Windows 11 Home — "Claude Desktop failed to Launch" with no logs generated

System Info

• OS: Windows 11 Home, Build 26200.8117
• Install method: .exe downloaded from claude.ai/download
• Claude Desktop version: 1.569.0.0 (from CoworkVMService log)
• Hyper-V: enabled

What happens
After installation, Claude Desktop immediately shows the error:

"Claude Desktop failed to launch. We are so sorry, Claude Desktop failed to launch. Please check for updates and try again. If the issue persists, contact support."

The app closes and never opens.

What was tried

• Clean reinstall (multiple times)
• Ran installer as Administrator
• Deleted all AppData\Claude and AppData\Local\Claude folders (didn't exist)
• Deleted LocalAppData\Packages\Claude* folder (didn't exist — not a Store install)
• Ran sc delete CoworkVMService — received Access Denied (MSIX protection)
• Restarted PC between attempts

Logs
No main.log is ever created under %APPDATA%\Claude\logs\ or %LOCALAPPDATA%\Packages\Claude_*\. The app crashes before writing any logs.

The only log found was cowork_vm_node.log, which shows the CoworkVMService starting and stopping normally — no errors on the service side. Notable pattern: some attempts show [HCN] EnumerateNetworks result: [] (empty) while others show a valid network UUID. This suggests a possible race condition on HCN network initialization causing the app to crash before it can open.

Expected behavior
Claude Desktop should open normally, or at minimum fall back to chat-only mode if the Cowork VM fails to initialize.

Additional notes
This appears related to issues #27384, #27316, #25914 and others involving Windows 11 Home + Hyper-V detection failures. The lack of any main.log makes it impossible to diagnose further from the user side.

What Should Happen?

<img width="553" height="161" alt="Image" src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/ccae8098-36c7-491e-b11d-e5227db81682" />

Error Messages/Logs

Steps to Reproduce

while installing Claude desktop

Claude Model

Sonnet (default)

Is this a regression?

No, this never worked

Last Working Version

last version available on site

Claude Code Version

last version available on site

Platform

Anthropic API

Operating System

Windows

Terminal/Shell

Terminal.app (macOS)

Additional Information

_No response_