claude-code - 💡(How to fix) Fix [BUG] Claude Desktop reinstall destroys Code chat history (transcripts + Recents) while regular Chat history, project files, and memory all survive

Preflight Checklist

• I have searched existing issues and this hasn't been reported yet
• This is a single bug report (please file separate reports for different bugs)
• I am using the latest version of Claude Code

What's Wrong?

Reinstalling Claude Desktop permanently deleted my Code tab chat history, both the Recents/session list and the conversation transcripts. A Code thread is a chat thread. It's the same kind of conversation as a regular Chat thread: back-and-forth reasoning, decisions, working context. My regular Chat threads survived the reinstall because they're tied to the account. My Code threads were treated as disposable local data and got wiped. Same account, same app, same reinstall, and one kind of conversation came back while the other was destroyed. That history IS context, and it should follow me regardless of what files happened to be saved to disk. Project files, git history, and the per-project ~/.claude/projects/<proj>/memory/ files all survived. Only the Code conversations were lost, and there is no in-app way to recover them.

What Should Happen?

Code conversation history should be as durable as regular Chat history: tied to the account, synced, and persistent across reinstalls and devices, independent of any saved project files. A reinstall should never delete conversation history.

Error Messages/Logs

The data loss itself is silent. There's no error; the Code history just doesn't come back after reinstall. For completeness, the install failure that forced the reinstall path:
AppX Deployment operation failed for package Claude_1.9255.2.0_x64__pzs8sxrjxfjjc with error 0x80073CF6.
Specific error text: An internal error occurred with error 0x80073D05.
Related sub-error: 0x800703FA (illegal operation on a registry key marked for deletion).
User-facing dialog: "Installation failed: AddPackage failed with HRESULT 0x80073CF6".

Steps to Reproduce

1. Use the Claude Desktop Code tab and build up some sessions/threads.
2. Uninstall Claude Desktop.
3. Reinstall it. (In my case the reinstall first hit the known wedged MSIX error 0x80073CF6; a full reboot cleared it and the reinstall then succeeded.)
4. Open the Code tab. Recents is empty and all prior Code threads are gone.
5. Note that regular Chat threads are all still present (account-synced), while Code threads are not.

Note: ~/.claude/projects/<proj>/memory/ files survive the reinstall, but the Code transcripts do not appear there; they lived in the app package data that the reinstall cleared.

Claude Model

Opus

Is this a regression?

I don't know

Last Working Version

No response

Claude Code Version

Claude Desktop 1.9255.2.0 (Windows). This is the desktop app Code tab, not the standalone CLI.

Platform

Anthropic API

Operating System

Windows

Terminal/Shell

PowerShell

Additional Information

This is the Claude Desktop app's Code tab on Windows, not the standalone Claude Code CLI, so a few fields below (Terminal/Shell, API platform) don't map cleanly, and I filled them with the closest available option. Plan: Max. OS: Windows 11 Pro, build 10.0.26200, x64. What started this: the reinstall was forced by the known wedged MSIX install bug (HRESULT 0x80073CF6), which currently has no clean repair flow (see #37898, #48437, #59471, #49917). That bug funnels users into uninstall/reinstall or app-data clearing, which is exactly what destroys the Code history. One known bug leads straight into a second, worse one (data loss). Suggested fixes:

1. Treat Code conversations with the same persistence as regular Chat threads: account-tied, synced, and recoverable across reinstalls and devices.
2. At minimum, store Code transcripts + session index under the user profile (~/.claude/) so they survive a reinstall the way the memory/ files already do.
3. Add a "repair / force clean" installer option for the wedged MSIX state so users aren't pushed into destructive workarounds.
4. If app-data must be cleared during recovery, preserve conversation history first, or warn explicitly before deleting it.

One more thing, and I mean this as feedback, not snark: filing this report should not be this hard. A dozen required fields, several dropdowns, and an OS dropdown defaulted to the wrong platform is its own friction problem. If you want more good bug reports, make reporting them less painful.