[BUG] Claude Desktop taskbar icon blurry on Windows 11 at high DPI scaling

I'm seeing the same low-res icon issue, but in the Start menu (Windows 11 Pro, 100% scaling), so it's not limited to the taskbar or high-DPI setups. I dug into the installed MSIX package and can confirm the suspected root cause: the package ships insufficient icon assets.

Package inspected: Claude_1.24012.9.0_x64__pzs8sxrjxfjjc (MSIX)

Actual pixel sizes of the shipped assets (measured, not filename claims):

| Asset | Actual size | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Square44x44Logo.targetsize-24_altform-unplated.png | 24×24 | the only targetsize variant in the package |
| Square44x44Logo.png (scale-100) | 88×88 | should be 44×44 for scale-100 |
| Square44x44Logo.scale-200.png | 88×88 | byte-identical to the scale-100 file |
| Square150x150Logo.png / .scale-200.png | 300×300 | byte-identical to each other |
| assets\icon.png (StoreLogo) | 50×50 | |

Manifest oddities (AppxManifest.xml):

• Square71x71Logo is mapped to Square44x44Logo.targetsize-24_altform-unplated.png (a 24×24 image)
• Square310x310Logo is mapped to the 300×300 Square150x150Logo.png

Why it looks blurry: the Windows 11 Start menu / taskbar prefers Square44x44Logo targetsize variants and renders at ~24–48px depending on surface and DPI. Since only targetsize-24 exists, anything larger than 24px gets that image upscaled → visible pixelation. Rebuilding the icon cache doesn't help because the source asset itself is 24×24.

Suggested fix: ship the standard targetsize set (16, 20, 24, 30, 32, 36, 40, 48, 64, 256) including altform-unplated / altform-lightunplated variants, and fix the scale-100/200 and Square71x71/310x310 mappings.

Happy to provide screenshots if useful.

Thanks so much for digging into this — that's way more detail than I could've provided myself. Confirms this isn't a scaling-settings issue on my end at all, it's a packaging problem baked into the MSIX itself.

The byte-identical scale-100/scale-200 files is a great catch too — explains why even icon cache resets never helped, since there was never a real high-res asset to begin with.

Hopefully this gives the team everything they need for a quick fix. Appreciate you taking the time to inspect the package directly 🙏

Confirming this still ships in 1.26832.0.0 — newer than both versions cited above (1.7196.0.0 in #59477, 1.24012.9.0 in @mtakafuji's comment). Nothing has changed across those three versions.

Verified against the live install at C:\Program Files\WindowsApps\Claude_1.26832.0.0_x64__pzs8sxrjxfjjc:

| Check | Status in 1.26832.0.0 |
|---|---|
| targetsize-*_altform-unplated variants | still exactly one, at 24×24 |
| Square44x44Logo.png vs .scale-200.png | still byte-identical (8222 bytes, both 88×88) |
| Square71x71Logo mapping | still points at the 24×24 unplated image |
| Square310x310Logo mapping | still points at the 300×300 Square150x150Logo.png |
| any scale-150 variant | still absent |

The whole package ships 3 Square44x44Logo* assets. For comparison, the Spotify MSIX on the same machine ships 62, with unplated variants at 16/20/24/30/32/36/40/48/60/64/72/80/96/256 — which is why it renders crisply on the same taskbar at the same scale.

Concrete case: this display is 2304×1536 at 150% scaling, so the Win11 taskbar needs 36px (24 logical × 1.5). The only unplated asset is 24px, so Windows upscales by a non-integer 1.5× — every output pixel is a blend of source pixels, which is exactly the blur being reported. Adding a single Square44x44Logo.targetsize-36_altform-unplated.png would fix this specific scale; shipping the full family fixes all of them.

Also worth noting #59477 was closed by the stale-issue bot for inactivity rather than by a triage decision, and its predecessor #43211 was closed as invalid. Neither received a human response.