Windows SDK dependencies removed from `windows-latest` Action runner

[Arlodotexe]

Background

Originally posted by @Arlodotexe in #734 (comment)

This is very strange, we're seeing issues with Marquee here stemming from #732:

         C:\a\Labs-Windows\Labs-Windows\components\Marquee\src\Marquee.Properties.cs(5,18): error CS0234: The type or namespace name 'Text' does not exist in the namespace 'Windows.UI' (are you missing an assembly reference?) [C:\a\Labs-Windows\Labs-Windows\components\Marquee\src\CommunityToolkit.WinUI.Controls.Marquee.csproj::TargetFramework=uap10.0.17763]
         C:\a\Labs-Windows\Labs-Windows\tooling\GlobalUsings_WinUI.cs(11,33): error CS0234: The type or namespace name 'Collections' does not exist in the namespace 'Windows.Foundation' (are you missing an assembly reference?) [C:\a\Labs-Windows\Labs-Windows\components\Marquee\src\CommunityToolkit.WinUI.Controls.Marquee.csproj::TargetFramework=uap10.0.17763]

There may have been an issue with the incremental builds when the component was renamed that prevented it from running properly. I'll have to branch off main and fix this before we continue.

I'm not seeing this same error on the wasdk multitarget. In the meantime, I'll rerun this to see if it helps there.

Update: I'm not seeing any build errors locally, even in release mode. Let's wait for the CI to retry to see if it self-corrects...

Update 2: The Wasdk error provides a bit more insight, still not enough to tell exactly what happened:

       CsWinRTGenerateProjection:
         Creating directory "C:\a\Labs-Windows\Labs-Windows\components\CanvasView\src\obj\x64\Release\net9.0-windows10.0.19041.0\Generated Files\CsWinRT\".
         "C:\Users\runneradmin\.nuget\packages\microsoft.windows.cswinrt\2.2.0\cswinrt.exe" @"C:\a\Labs-Windows\Labs-Windows\components\CanvasView\src\obj\x64\Release\net9.0-windows10.0.19041.0\Generated Files\CsWinRT\cswinrt.rsp"
         "C:\Users\runneradmin\.nuget\packages\microsoft.windows.cswinrt\2.2.0\cswinrt.exe" @"C:\a\Labs-Windows\Labs-Windows\components\CanvasView\src\obj\x64\Release\net9.0-windows10.0.19041.0\Generated Files\CsWinRT\cswinrt.rsp"
    10>EXEC : error : Could not read the Windows SDK's Platform.xml at C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\Platforms\UAP\10.0.19041.0\Platform.xml [C:\a\Labs-Windows\Labs-Windows\components\CanvasView\src\CommunityToolkit.WinUI.Controls.CanvasView.csproj::TargetFramework=net9.0-windows10.0.19041.0]

It almost looks like Windows SDKs were removed from the runner.

Problem

The windows-latest and windows-latest-large runners are now using windows-2025 instead of windows-2022.

This is the cause of the above errors we've been seeing in CI, as the 19041 and 17763 Windows SDKs are not preinstalled in the Windows 2025 runner.

Solution

Our options are:

• Switch to windows-2022 and windows-2022-large runners where possible
• Update the targets to a higher version supported by windows-2025 / windows-latest
• Install the required windows SDK as a CI job and keep windows-latest and windows-latest-large runners.

[Arlodotexe]

See also https://github.blog/changelog/2025-07-31-github-actions-new-apis-and-windows-latest-migration-notice/

The windows-latest label in GitHub Actions will migrate from Windows Server 2022 to Windows Server 2025 beginning September 2, 2025 and finishing by September 30, 2025.

[michael-hawker]

@Arlodotexe dir "c:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\bin" should list out the installed SDKs on the machine I believe. We can check what's there in comparison.

We should be able to use/target the latest and still have the min version the same. It'd be nice to not have to install them across every build that takes a while. If we do need an older SDK to maintain compatibility with min ver or something, we should file a request for that to still be installed on the VM.

[michael-hawker]

Bubbling up from Docs:

Installed Windows SDKs 2022

• 10.0.17763.0
• 10.0.19041.0
• 10.0.22621.0
• 10.0.26100.0

Installed Windows SDKs 2025

• 10.0.26100.0

Let's try:

1. Seeing if we can just use the latest 26100 to build or if we need 17763 to support that as our min version.
2. If the later is needed and one SDK is insufficient, we should file a regression against the runner repo linking to their 2025 issue.

Added a comment here: actions/runner-images#12677 (comment)

[michael-hawker]

Talked to @Arlodotexe updated our hosted runner back to Windows 2022: https://github.com/organizations/CommunityToolkit/settings/actions/github-hosted-runners/2?viewing_from_runner_group=false

Now windows-2022-large, so we can try updating all references to the runner to be windows-2022 (default), windows-2022-large (our custom shared hosted runner in the toolkit org)

[michael-hawker]

Related as well the D:\ drive may be fixed? actions/runner-images#12744