Taskbar icon for Claude desktop app is heavily pixelated on Windows (MSIX missing targetsize assets)

<img width="1578" height="91" alt="Image" src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/cf280781-90f4-4ac0-b1ad-8caaf2b1e313" />

Taskbar icon for Claude desktop app is heavily pixelated on Windows

Environment

• App: Claude desktop (Windows, MSIX install from Microsoft Store)
• Version: 1.7196.0.0
• Install path: C:\Program Files\WindowsApps\Claude_1.7196.0.0_x64__pzs8sxrjxfjjc\app\Claude.exe
• OS: Windows 11 Pro 10.0.26200
• Status: Persistent across multiple app versions — has not been fixed despite passage of time.

Symptom

The Claude icon pinned to the Windows taskbar (and shown in the taskbar while the app is running) is visibly low-resolution and pixelated, in contrast to neighboring icons (Edge, File Explorer, Outlook, etc.) which render crisply at the same taskbar size and display scale.

Root cause — concrete evidence from the shipped MSIX package

The package declares Square44x44Logo.png as the taskbar icon source in AppxManifest.xml:

<uap:VisualElements
    Square44x44Logo="Assets\Square44x44Logo.png"
    Square150x150Logo="Assets\Square150x150Logo.png"
    DisplayName="Claude" />

Inventory of the assets\ folder reveals two problems:

1. The two scale variants are byte-identical:

assets\Square44x44Logo.png             8222 bytes
assets\Square44x44Logo.scale-200.png   8222 bytes   ← same byte count, almost certainly the same image

That means at 200% DPI scaling, Windows is being handed a 44×44 bitmap labeled as if it were 88×88. Result: upscale blur.

2. The targetsize-NN variant set required for crisp taskbar rendering across DPI is almost entirely missing.

Windows uses Square44x44Logo.targetsize-NN.png files to pick the right pre-rendered bitmap for the actual pixel size the taskbar needs (which varies by display scale and Windows version). The full recommended set is:

targetsize-16, -20, -24, -30, -32, -36, -40, -48, -60, -64, -72, -80, -96, -256

The package ships exactly one targetsize variant:

assets\Square44x44Logo.targetsize-24_altform-unplated.png   866 bytes

Every other size — including the larger sizes Windows 11's taskbar reaches for on high-DPI displays — is absent. So Windows falls back to upscaling the small Square44x44Logo.png, which produces the pixelation the user sees.

Compare to a well-packaged MSIX app such as the Windows Terminal or VS Code MSIX, which ship the full targetsize-NN and targetsize-NN_altform-* families.

Suggested fix

Regenerate the MSIX assets through the standard pipeline (Visual Studio's image-asset tool, MakeAppx, or Microsoft's UWP Tile Generator) starting from a high-resolution source SVG/PNG (≥256×256). Ensure the output includes the full set of Square44x44Logo.targetsize-*.png variants at minimum, plus matching scale-100/125/150/200/400 variants of each declared logo.

Impact

Cosmetic but persistent — the pinned Claude icon stands out (in a bad way) among other apps on the taskbar. For a polished Anthropic product this is more visible than most bugs, because users see it every single day.

Attachment

A screenshot showing the Claude icon next to other crisply-rendered taskbar icons can be attached at submission for direct visual comparison.