claude.exe polls entire PATH for \coder\ (and other tools) every 30 seconds, including removable/archive drives

Description

claude.exe (v1.7196.0) continuously searches every directory in the system PATH for coder.exe, coder.bat, coder.cmd, and coder.ps1 on a 30-second polling interval. This persists indefinitely — it does not stop or back off after repeated failures, and it continues even after receiving PATH NOT FOUND results (i.e., when the directory no longer exists on disk).

This causes unnecessary and repeated I/O on drives that should be idle, including removable drives and archive drives.

Steps to Reproduce

1. Install Claude desktop app (v1.7196.0) on Windows
2. Have any directory on a non-system drive (e.g. D:\) in your PATH
3. Capture activity with Sysinternals Process Monitor filtered to claude.exe
4. Observe repeated CreateFile calls to every PATH directory every ~30 seconds

Observed Behavior

Every 30 seconds, claude.exe walks the entire PATH probing for coder.exe/.bat/.cmd/.ps1 in every directory. From a Process Monitor capture, the pattern on D:\Streamlink\bin\ (an archive drive with no relation to Claude):

8:44:48 AM  CreateFile  D:\Streamlink\bin\coder.exe   NAME NOT FOUND
8:44:48 AM  CreateFile  D:\Streamlink\bin\coder.bat   NAME NOT FOUND
8:44:48 AM  CreateFile  D:\Streamlink\bin\coder.cmd   NAME NOT FOUND
8:44:48 AM  CreateFile  D:\Streamlink\bin\coder.ps1   NAME NOT FOUND

8:45:18 AM  CreateFile  D:\Streamlink\bin\coder.exe   NAME NOT FOUND
... (repeats every 30 seconds)

8:47:18 AM  CreateFile  D:\Streamlink\bin\coder.exe   PATH NOT FOUND
8:47:48 AM  CreateFile  D:\Streamlink\bin\coder.exe   PATH NOT FOUND
... (PATH NOT FOUND — drive unavailable — but polling continues anyway)

The same pattern also occurs for git and gh at 8:48:59 AM. All PATH directories are hit on every poll cycle.

Expected Behavior

• The probe should run once at startup and cache the result. If coder is not found, there is no need to keep searching.
• If periodic re-checking is necessary, the interval should be much longer (e.g., minutes, not 30 seconds), and should stop or back off after receiving PATH NOT FOUND.
• Drives that become unavailable should not continue to be probed.

Impact

• Causes unnecessary and repeated I/O on archive/removable/network drives in PATH
• Prevents drives from spinning down or going idle
• On systems with network-mapped drives in PATH, this generates continuous unnecessary network traffic

Environment

• Claude desktop app v1.7196.0 (2dbd78)
• Windows Server 2022 (10.0.22621)
• D:\Streamlink\bin is in PATH (an archive drive unrelated to Claude)