build: Bump VS minimum supported version to 18.3 #33861

hebasto commented at 3:09 PM on November 12, 2025: member

The new VS 18.0 release includes numerous bug fixes.

Bumped to v18.3.0 where this bug in the builtin vcpkg is fixed.

hebasto added the label Refactoring on Nov 12, 2025

hebasto added the label Windows on Nov 12, 2025

hebasto added the label Build system on Nov 12, 2025

DrahtBot commented at 3:10 PM on November 12, 2025: contributor

The following sections might be updated with supplementary metadata relevant to reviewers and maintainers.

Code Coverage & Benchmarks

For details see: https://corecheck.dev/bitcoin/bitcoin/pulls/33861.

Reviews

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Type	Reviewers
ACK	maflcko, hodlinator, janb84

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Conflicts

Reviewers, this pull request conflicts with the following ones:

#34500 (ci: Print verbose Windows CI build failure by maflcko)
#31974 (Drop testnet3 by Sjors)

If you consider this pull request important, please also help to review the conflicting pull requests. Ideally, start with the one that should be merged first.

fanquake commented at 3:35 PM on November 12, 2025: member

Seems a bit premature, if this is still waiting for multiple pieces of unreleased software? Could just wait for it to be shown as fixed in a nightly build?

DrahtBot added the label CI failed on Nov 12, 2025

hebasto force-pushed on Nov 30, 2025

DrahtBot added the label Needs rebase on Dec 1, 2025

hebasto force-pushed on Dec 1, 2025

in .github/workflows/ci.yml:225 in 58e0680e92

 218 | @@ -219,10 +219,10 @@ jobs:
 219 |          include:
 220 |            - job-type: standard
 221 |              generate-options: '-DBUILD_BENCH=ON -DBUILD_KERNEL_LIB=ON -DBUILD_UTIL_CHAINSTATE=ON -DWERROR=ON'
 222 | -            job-name: 'Windows native, VS 2022'
 223 | +            job-name: 'Windows native, VS 2026'
 224 |            - job-type: fuzz
 225 |              generate-options: '-DVCPKG_MANIFEST_NO_DEFAULT_FEATURES=ON -DVCPKG_MANIFEST_FEATURES="wallet" -DBUILD_GUI=OFF -DWITH_ZMQ=OFF -DBUILD_FOR_FUZZING=ON -DWERROR=ON'
 226 | -            job-name: 'Windows native, fuzz, VS 2022'
 227 | +            job-name: 'Windows native, fuzz, VS 2026'

maflcko commented at 11:05 AM on December 1, 2025:

could remove the version/year here, as the docs and presets should already be clear on it? (no other ci task is having the version/year in the title)

hebasto commented at 11:09 AM on December 1, 2025:

Thanks! Updated.

hebasto force-pushed on Dec 1, 2025

DrahtBot removed the label Needs rebase on Dec 1, 2025

hebasto force-pushed on Feb 5, 2026

hebasto marked this as ready for review on Feb 5, 2026

hebasto marked this as a draft on Feb 5, 2026

DrahtBot added the label Needs rebase on Feb 5, 2026

DrahtBot removed the label CI failed on Feb 5, 2026

hebasto force-pushed on Feb 6, 2026

hebasto marked this as ready for review on Feb 6, 2026

in .github/workflows/ci.yml:207 in f9d8763604 outdated

 203 | @@ -204,7 +204,7 @@ jobs:
 204 |  
 205 |    windows-native-dll:
 206 |      name: ${{ matrix.job-name }}
 207 | -    runs-on: windows-2022
 208 | +    runs-on: windows-2025-vs2026

maflcko commented at 8:55 AM on February 6, 2026:

are there any docs on this image?

hebasto commented at 8:58 AM on February 6, 2026:

https://github.blog/changelog/2026-02-05-github-actions-early-february-2026-updates/

https://docs.github.com/en/actions/reference/runners/github-hosted-runners#standard-github-hosted-runners-for-public-repositories

maflcko commented at 9:01 AM on February 6, 2026:

Yeah, https://github.com/actions/runner-images/tree/c218bde724e0ae9730d9ce101bca654a4c2e521d/images/windows/Windows2025-vs2026-Readme.md is a 404

I guess it doesn't matter as long as ci is green here :shrug:

hebasto commented at 3:15 PM on February 6, 2026:

Yeah, https://github.com/actions/runner-images/tree/c218bde724e0ae9730d9ce101bca654a4c2e521d/images/windows/Windows2025-vs2026-Readme.md is a 404

It has been updated now: https://github.com/actions/runner-images/blob/9d993a88882958120cc141ad76008b50e94c40de/images/windows/Windows2025-VS2026-Readme.md

hebasto commented at 8:56 AM on February 6, 2026: member

Rebased and undrafted.

maflcko commented at 9:32 AM on February 6, 2026: member

lgtm ACK f9d87636044117aa4b73bd417fac1cd2d77712e1

DrahtBot removed the label Needs rebase on Feb 6, 2026

fanquake commented at 12:20 PM on February 6, 2026: member

I guess there's no issue here with us assuming everyone compiling/developing on Windows is using an editor that is < 3 months old (https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/visualstudio/releases/2026/release-notes#november-update-1800)?

fanquake commented at 12:42 PM on February 6, 2026: member

Also, according to #34515 this software is broken:

Also, moving to Visual Studio 2026 (Community edition) is currently not an option, it ships with a unusable vcpkg version.

but I guess this doesn't effect us, or at least our usage in CI?

hebasto commented at 5:34 PM on February 6, 2026: member

Also, according to #34515 this software is broken:

Also, moving to Visual Studio 2026 (Community edition) is currently not an option, it ships with a unusable vcpkg version.

but I guess this doesn't effect us, or at least our usage in CI?

It affects the builtin vcpkg that is recommended in our docs. The CI uses an alternative vcpkg installation.

Converted to draft.

hebasto marked this as a draft on Feb 6, 2026

DrahtBot added the label Needs rebase on Feb 9, 2026

hebasto force-pushed on Feb 10, 2026

hebasto commented at 3:42 PM on February 10, 2026: member

Rebased to resolve a conflict with merged bitcoin/bitcoin#34500.

in doc/build-windows-msvc.md:97 in 88dc11eecd

  96 | @@ -97,7 +97,7 @@ cmake -B build --preset vs2022-static -DVCPKG_INSTALLED_DIR="C:\path_without_spa
  97 |  One can skip vcpkg manifest default features to speedup the configuration step.

maflcko commented at 4:34 PM on February 10, 2026:

speedup -> speed up [verb phrase should be two words ("speed up") rather than the noun "speedup"; the current form is nonstandard in this context and may hinder clarity]

l0rinc commented at 4:45 PM on February 10, 2026:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speedup - though here I'd also write it separately

maflcko commented at 6:04 PM on February 10, 2026:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speedup - though here I'd also write it separately

wikipedia article is about the noun, not the verb

hebasto commented at 9:53 PM on February 10, 2026:

Fixed.

DrahtBot removed the label Needs rebase on Feb 10, 2026

hebasto force-pushed on Feb 10, 2026

hebasto marked this as ready for review on Feb 10, 2026

hebasto commented at 9:53 PM on February 10, 2026: member

Undrafted.

hebasto renamed this:
~~build: Bump VS minimum supported version to 18.0~~
build: Bump VS minimum supported version to 18.3
on Feb 10, 2026

hebasto commented at 10:07 PM on February 10, 2026: member

I guess there's no issue here with us assuming everyone compiling/developing on Windows is using an editor that is < 3 months old (https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/visualstudio/releases/2026/release-notes#november-update-1800)?

It shouldn't be a blocker, as Visual Studio supports side-by-side installations. Anyone who needs VS 2022 can keep it installed alongside the new version.

build: Bump VS minimum supported version to 18.3 7164a0cab6

refactor: Remove workaround for resolved MSVC bug

The bug was fixed in Visual Studio 18.0.

452c743951

hebasto force-pushed on Feb 10, 2026

maflcko commented at 9:08 AM on February 11, 2026: member

review ACK 452c743951fa69f25f09e42239d1e70a0acf5c2b 🍳

<details><summary>Show signature</summary>

Signature:

untrusted comment: signature from minisign secret key on empty file; verify via: minisign -Vm "${path_to_any_empty_file}" -P RWTRmVTMeKV5noAMqVlsMugDDCyyTSbA3Re5AkUrhvLVln0tSaFWglOw -x "${path_to_this_whole_four_line_signature_blob}"
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trusted comment: review ACK 452c743951fa69f25f09e42239d1e70a0acf5c2b 🍳
ZeJCBWwDHyoCA8wRnxzHw3u7Z53n/0v6sSrpFYt2KYUq7pvIQDOFtdDCPfVJGikBk4iLjOMdtgniYCEd9P0ACA==

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hodlinator approved

hodlinator commented at 9:30 AM on February 11, 2026: contributor

crACK 452c743951fa69f25f09e42239d1e70a0acf5c2b

Thanks for removing the workaround I added! Searched to see if there are additional places with MSVC/2022 specific exceptions that could be removed but didn't find any.

maflcko added this to the milestone 31.0 on Feb 11, 2026

janb84 commented at 11:17 AM on February 11, 2026: contributor

ACK 452c743951fa69f25f09e42239d1e70a0acf5c2b

Successfully build and tested using the (free) Visual Studio 2026 Community edition 18.3 using the new presets.

Given the changes in chainparams I also validated that a non-windows build still works

NB. All dependencies (python, git and VS 2026 Community edition ) can be installed with the following 2 winget commands (winget is preinstalled on windows 11).

winget install --id Microsoft.VisualStudio.Community `
 --override "--wait --quiet --add Microsoft.VisualStudio.Workload.NativeDesktop --add Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.Git --includeRecommended"
 
winget install python3

</details>

fanquake merged this on Feb 11, 2026

fanquake closed this on Feb 11, 2026

hebasto commented at 11:24 AM on February 11, 2026: member

@janb84

NB. All dependencies (python, git and VS 2026 Community edition ) can be installed with the following 2 winget commands (winget is preinstalled on windows 11). Details
winget install --id Microsoft.VisualStudio.Community `
 --override "--wait --quiet --add Microsoft.VisualStudio.Workload.NativeDesktop --add Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.Git --includeRecommended"
 
winget install python3

Would you be willing to open a PR for the build docs to include these winget commands? It would help align the Windows instructions with the style of the other platforms.

I'll be happy to review it.

hebasto deleted the branch on Feb 11, 2026