[Windows] Windows 11 Arm with Visual Studio 2026 is now available as a public preview

[v-AndriiKhyliuk]

Breaking changes

Windows 11 Arm with Visual Studio 2026 is now available for GitHub Actions.
You can use the windows-11-vs2026-arm image label in your YAML to select this image.

jobs:
  jobName:
    runs-on: windows-11-vs2026-arm

The image is marked as "preview" for now. It means some software can be unstable on the new platform.
Also, there could be queueing issues as the capacity will be balanced only throughout the next weeks.
Please report any problems with the new image to this repository.

Software difference between Windows 11 Arm and Windows 11 Arm with Visual Studio 2026

Tool name	Windows 11 Arm	Windows 11 Arm with VS 2026	Notes
Visual Studio	Not installed	Visual Studio Enterprise 2026 (18.6.11822.322)	Added to the image
CMake		4.3.3	Adds support for Visual Studio 2026 generator
Android Command Line Tools		19.0	cmdline tools version installed by VS2026 was bumped
Node.js		24.16.0	Updated to the recent version
Python		3.13.13	Updated to the recent version
Ruby		3.4.9	Updated to the recent version
Go		1.24.13	Updated to the recent version
LLVM		20.1.6	Updated to the recent version
OpenSSL		3.6.2	Updated to the recent version
PowerShell		7.4.16	Updated to the recent version
Git		2.54.0.windows.1	Updated to the recent version
Java		21.0.11+10.0 (default), 23.0.2+7	Multiple versions are installed
.NET Core SDK		6.0.136, 6.0.203, 6.0.321, 6.0.428, 8.0.127, 8.0.206, 8.0.319, 8.0.421, 9.0.117, 9.0.205, 9.0.314, 10.0.108, 10.0.204, 10.0.300	Multiple SDK versions are installed

Known issues:

N/A

Target date

Thursday, June 11, 2026

The motivation for the changes

The purpose of a Preview is to collect feedback on an image before it is released to GA.
The goal of a Preview is to identify and fix any potential issues that exist on that image.

Possible impact

N/A

Platforms affected

• Azure DevOps
• GitHub Actions

Runner images affected

• Ubuntu 22.04
• Ubuntu 22.04 Arm64
• Ubuntu 24.04
• Ubuntu 24.04 Arm64
• Ubuntu 26.04
• Ubuntu 26.04 Arm64
• 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
• Windows 11 Arm64
• Windows 11 Arm64 with Visual Studio 2026

Mitigation ways

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