[BUG] Claude Desktop (Windows) BSOD on launch with Team/Enterprise account — conflict between Cowork VM Platform (vmcompute/HNS) and CSC/RDBSS in a Folder Redirection + Offline Files environment
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?
Summary:
Claude Desktop causes a systematic, 100% reproducible Windows kernel crash (BSOD) on first launch immediately after signing in with a professional account (Team/Enterprise plan). The issue never occurs when signing in with a free/personal account on the same machine. This started after installing the latest available version of Claude Desktop — I had not experienced this issue with the previous version I was using.
Environment:
Windows 11 Pro
Claude Desktop, latest version at time of writing, clean reinstall performed (removed %APPDATA%\Claude, %LOCALAPPDATA%\AnthropicClaude, %LOCALAPPDATA%\Packages\Claude_*, %ProgramData%\Claude before reinstalling)
Domain-joined machine with Folder Redirection enabled (Desktop, Documents, Pictures, Music, Videos redirected to OneDrive for Business)
Offline Files (CSC) active and enabled (C:\WINDOWS\CSC)
What Should Happen?
No BSOD...
Error Messages/Logs
Crash dump analysis (via WinDbg/BlueScreenView):
Drivers identified in the dump:
csc.sys — Windows Client Side Caching Driver
rdbss.sys — Redirected Drive Buffering SubSystem
ntoskrnl.exe — NT Kernel & System
Environment confirmed via PowerShell:
Get-ItemProperty "HKCU:\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders" confirms Desktop, Documents (Personal), Pictures, Music, and Videos are redirected to a OneDrive for Business path.
Get-WmiObject -Namespace root\cimv2 -Class Win32_OfflineFilesCache confirms:
Active : True
Enabled : True
Location : C:\WINDOWS\CSCSteps to Reproduce
Install the latest version of Claude Desktop (clean, no leftover files)
Sign in with the professional (Team/Enterprise) account
Immediate BSOD on first launch right after sign-in
No crash occurs when signing in with a free/personal Gmail account on the same machine
Possible regression: this behavior appeared with the latest version update; I did not encounter this crash prior to updating
Claude Model
None
Is this a regression?
Yes, this worked in a previous version
Last Working Version
_No response_
Claude Code Version
2.1.233 (Claude Code)
Platform
Other
Operating System
Windows
Terminal/Shell
Other
Additional Information
Already ruled out:
No active Hyper-V/WSL/Docker VM at crash time (verified via Get-Process docker, wsl --list --running, Get-VM — all empty)
Clean reinstall of Claude Desktop (latest version) — no effect
Full rebuild of the CSC cache database via the official Microsoft procedure (reg add "HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\CSC\Parameters" /v FormatDatabase /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f followed by a full reboot) — no effect, identical crash reproduced at the same point
Confirmed by Anthropic support (support.claude.com ticket): Claude Desktop requires the Windows Virtual Machine Platform for Cowork and relies on vmcompute and HNS (Host Network Service). This suggests the crash may stem from an interaction between Cowork's VM networking layer (HNS) and the CSC/RDBSS redirected-folder driver stack, specifically triggered during Team/Enterprise account initialization.
Hypothesis: A recent change in how Cowork initializes its VM (networking or file access against the user profile / redirected folders such as Documents/Desktop/AppData) introduced in the latest release conflicts with the CSC cache layer when Offline Files is active on a domain-joined machine with Folder Redirection enabled.
Related prior reports of Cowork/Claude Desktop triggering Windows kernel BSODs via intensive file operations:
#32870 — BSOD via Wof.sys during intensive directory listing (NtQueryDirectoryFileEx)
#69359 — BSOD on a Hyper-V host while Cowork processed a large Jira API response