[Windows] The Windows Server 2025 with Visual Studio 2026 is now generally available in GitHub Actions

[v-AndriiKhyliuk]

Breaking changes

Windows Server 2025 with Visual Studio 2026 is now generally available for all GitHub Actions.
You can use the windows-2025-vs2026 image label in your YAML to select this image.

jobs:
  jobName:
    runs-on: windows-2025-vs2026

Target date

Thursday, May 7, 2026

The motivation for the changes

The images have passed the beta stage.

Possible impact

N/A

Software difference between Windows Server 2025 and Windows Server 2025 with VS 2026

Tool name	Windows Server 2025	Windows Server 2025 with VS 2026	Notes
Visual Studio	Visual Studio 2022 (version 17.14.*)	Visual Studio 2026 (version 18.5.*)	Updated to the recent version
Visual Studio components	*	Removed Component.Dotfuscator Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.Azure.ServiceFabric.Tools Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.TestTools.CodedUITest Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.TestTools.WebLoadTest Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.VC.Tools.ARM Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.VC.Modules.x86.x64 Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.VC.Runtimes.ARM.Spectre Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.VC.MFC.ARM Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.VC.MFC.ARM.Spectre Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.VC.ATL.ARM Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.VC.ATL.ARM.Spectre Microsoft.VisualStudio.ComponentGroup.Azure.CloudServices Microsoft.VisualStudio.ComponentGroup.Azure.ResourceManager.Tools Added Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.VC.14.44.17.14.x86.x64	Unavalable in VS 2026. MSVC v143 is added for compatibility
CMake	3.31.6	latest available (4.3.2)	Adds Visual Studio 18 2026 generator
Android Command Line Tools	16.0	19.0	cmdline tools version isntalled by VS2026 was bumped

Platforms affected

• Azure DevOps
• GitHub Actions

Runner images affected

• Ubuntu 22.04
• Ubuntu 24.04
• Ubuntu Slim
• macOS 14
• macOS 14 Arm64
• macOS 15
• macOS 15 Arm64
• macOS 26
• macOS 26 Arm64
• Windows Server 2022
• Windows Server 2025
• Windows Server 2025 with Visual Studio 2026

Mitigation ways

Please report any problems with the new image to this repository.

[ericoporto]

Until which date can I use the Windows Server 2022 image?

[Pierreluc14]

Until which date can I use the Windows Server 2022 image?

Until next Windows Server runner.