[BUG] Cowork never initializes on Windows 11 arm64 (Snapdragon X / HP Omnibook) — smol-bin.arm64.vhdx locked in read-only AppX directory, never copied to writable location

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?

Cowork has never successfully initialized on this machine.

The error is:
EBUSY: resource busy or locked, open 'C:\Users\[username]\AppData\Roaming\Claude\vm_bundles\claudevm.bundle\smol-bin.vhdx'

Investigation reveals the vhdx is not present at that path. Instead, smol-bin.arm64.vhdx is located inside the read-only AppX installation directory:
C:\Program Files\WindowsApps\Claude_1.1062.0.0_arm64__pzs8sxrjxfjjc\app\resources\smol-bin.arm64.vhdx
Neither %APPDATA%\Claude\vm_bundles nor %LOCALAPPDATA%\Claude\vm_bundles exists. The VM bundle is never copied to a writable location. Only %LOCALAPPDATA%\Claude\Logs exists, and cowork_vm_node.log is never created, indicating the VM process never initializes far enough to write logs.

CoworkVMService is present and running. Fully quitting Claude Desktop and relaunching does not resolve the issue. The vm_bundles directory cannot be cleared because it was never created.

Suspected Root Cause

On x64 builds, the installer appears to copy smol-bin.x64.vhdx from the AppX resources directory to a writable AppData location before mounting. On arm64, this copy-out step appears to be missing or failing silently, leaving the app attempting to mount the vhdx in-place from a protected, read-only AppX directory. The EBUSY error references a path that doesn't exist, suggesting the path construction logic may also have an arm64-specific bug.

What Should Happen?

smol-bin.arm64.vhdx should be copied to a writable location (e.g., %LOCALAPPDATA%\Claude\vm_bundles) on first launch, and Cowork should initialize from there.

Error Messages/Logs

Steps to Reproduce

Install Claude Desktop on a Windows 11 arm64 machine (Snapdragon X Elite)
Open Claude Desktop and navigate to Cowork
Observe EBUSY error referencing a vm_bundles path that does not exist
Confirm vhdx is present only in the AppX resources director

Claude Model

Sonnet (default)

Is this a regression?

No, this never worked

Last Working Version

_No response_

Claude Code Version

Claude Desktop version: 1.1062.0.0 (visible in Get-AppxPackage output)

Platform

Anthropic API

Operating System

Windows

Terminal/Shell

PowerShell

Additional Information

_No response_