I had a case where the VS Code shortcut suddenly stopped working. It turns out that it can't find the Code.exe code. I didn't install new version or manually upgraded it. Visiting the directory, Code.exe is just gone.

But eventually found couple of suggestions on how to fix the problem in the following post:

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/76187272/issues-with-vscode-cannot-open-code-exe-file-missing-and-failed-download

Couple of suggestions are:

1. Copy the content of _ folder/directory to parent directory C:\Users\<User>\AppData\Local\Programs\Microsoft VS Code
2. Create a shortcut to the Code.exe in _ folder/directory.
3. What I did is update the current shortcut from C:\Users\<User>\AppData\Local\Programs\Microsoft VS Code\Code.exe to C:\Users\<User>\AppData\Local\Programs\Microsoft VS Code\_\Code.exe