claude-code - 💡(How to fix) Fix [BUG] Claude desktop on Windows autorun incorrect registry entry [1 participants]

Claude Desktop for Windows is writing incorrect data to the Windows registry, preventing it from autorunning at startup. It's creating invalid data in the following location: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run in the Claude entry, it's adding the following data: "\"C:\Users\John Doe\AppData\Local\AnthropicClaude\claude.exe\" --startup" Maybe because there's a space in the account name? If the error is not corrected, not only does Claude not autorun at startup, but worse, it prevents access to any App settings in ALL Windows App!

Error Messages/Logs

TL;DR

The issue can likely be fixed by properly escaping or quoting the path to the executable in the Windows registry entry to handle spaces in the user name.

Guidance

• Verify that the issue is indeed caused by the space in the user name by testing with an account that has no spaces in its name.
• Check the code responsible for writing to the Windows registry to ensure it correctly handles paths with spaces, potentially by using proper quoting or escaping.
• Consider using the Windows API to write to the registry instead of manually constructing the registry path to avoid such issues.
• Test the fix by disabling and re-enabling the "Run on startup" option and then restarting Windows to see if Claude correctly autoruns.

Example

No specific code example can be provided without knowing the exact codebase, but ensuring that paths are properly quoted or escaped when writing to the registry is key. For example, using "\"C:\\Users\\John Doe\\AppData\\Local\\AnthropicClaude\\claude.exe\" --startup" might help, but the actual solution depends on how the string is being used and interpreted.

Notes

The issue seems to be related to how the path is written to the registry, specifically how spaces in the path are handled. Without access to the code, it's difficult to provide a precise fix, but ensuring proper path handling should resolve the issue.

Recommendation

Apply a workaround by manually correcting the registry entry to properly quote the path, as this is a regression and the previous version worked correctly. This will at least provide a temporary solution until the underlying code issue can be addressed.