fix(desktop): handle Windows verbatim path prefix to fix app startup crash

[Pallavikumarimdb]

Summary

Fixes an app startup crash on Windows.
The crash happens because Electron's app.getPath("userData") or app.getPath("appData") sometimes returns native Windows verbatim (extended-length) paths starting with \\?\ (e.g., \\?\C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\...).

Node.js standard path utilities (path.resolve, path.dirname, etc.) do not treat this prefix specially. When passed directly to path operations, the prefix was mangled into a path like \?, which subsequently failed with ENOENT during mkdir calls when creating directories like the Start Menu shortcut directory or the server configurations.

Changes

1. Added stripWindowsVerbatimPrefix helper in main.mjs and workspace-store.mjs to strip \\?\, \\?\UNC\, and device prefixes from Windows paths before they are passed to path or filesystem operations.
2. Fixed windowsProgramsPath(): Used process.env.USERPROFILE as the primary source of the user's home folder on Windows (which always returns a clean path) rather than splitting a potentially verbatim userData path string.
3. Fixed normalizeLocalWorkspacePath(): Normalized and stripped verbatim prefixes before calling path.resolve so that stored workspace paths do not resolve to incorrect/mangled locations.

Why

Issue

• Closes : [Bug]: App can not start - windows #2968

Scope

Out of scope

Testing

Ran

• ...

Result

• pass/fail:
• if fail, exact files/errors:

CI status

• pass:
• code-related failures:
• external/env/auth blockers:

Manual verification

Evidence

• video/screenshot link, or N/A (docs-only)

Risk

Rollback

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Project	Deployment	Actions	Updated (UTC)
openwork-landing	Ready	Preview, Comment, Open in v0	Jul 25, 2026 5:58pm

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