Migrate Windows CI to Visual Studio 2026

[shimat]

The windows-2025 runner image replaced Visual Studio 2022 with Visual Studio 2026, so the hardcoded CMake generator Visual Studio 17 2022 now fails with "could not find any instance of Visual Studio".

https://github.blog/changelog/2026-05-14-github-actions-upcoming-image-migrations/#windows-2025-visual-studio-2026-image-migration

Update the generator to Visual Studio 18 2026 in all 6 cmake invocations in .github/workflows/windows.yml (x64: OpenCV, Extern full, Extern slim; ARM64: the same three).

Summary by CodeRabbit

• Chores
  • Updated the Windows Server 2025 CI x64 CMake toolchain to use Visual Studio 18 2026 instead of Visual Studio 17 2022.
• Documentation
  • Removed the Windows requirement for the Visual C++ 2022 Redistributable from the main README.
  • Removed the Visual C++ 2022 Redistributable note from the managed NuGet README’s Windows requirements section.

[coderabbitai]

No actionable comments were generated in the recent review. 🎉

ℹ️ Recent review info

⚙️ Run configuration

Configuration used: Path: .coderabbit.yaml

Review profile: CHILL

Plan: Pro

Run ID: a2f026c2-cb20-42c9-ba59-427a25c72a90

📥 Commits

Reviewing files that changed from the base of the PR and between dc77c4d and 2360fc6.

📒 Files selected for processing (3)

• .github/workflows/windows.yml
• README.md
• nuget/README.managed.md

💤 Files with no reviewable changes (2)

• nuget/README.managed.md
• README.md

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📝 Walkthrough

Walkthrough

The Windows GitHub Actions workflow updates the CMake -G generator argument from Visual Studio 17 2022 to Visual Studio 18 2026 in the x64 build job across three configuration steps (OpenCV, OpenCvSharpExtern full, and OpenCvSharpExtern slim). Corresponding references to the Visual C++ 2022 Redistributable are removed from the main README and NuGet README documentation.

Changes

Visual Studio 2026 Migration

Layer / File(s)	Summary
CMake generator update (x64) .github/workflows/windows.yml	Updates the -G generator to Visual Studio 18 2026 for the OpenCV, OpenCvSharpExtern (full), and OpenCvSharpExtern (slim) configuration steps in the x64 job.
Remove outdated Visual C++ 2022 docs README.md, nuget/README.managed.md	Removes the Windows requirement entry for the Visual C++ 2022 Redistributable from both documentation files.

Estimated code review effort

🎯 1 (Trivial) | ⏱️ ~3 minutes

🚥 Pre-merge checks | ✅ 5

✅ Passed checks (5 passed)

Check name	Status	Explanation
Description Check	✅ Passed	Check skipped - CodeRabbit’s high-level summary is enabled.
Title check	✅ Passed	The title accurately summarizes the main change: migrating Windows CI to Visual Studio 2026, which directly addresses the core objective of updating the CMake generator in the workflow file.
Docstring Coverage	✅ Passed	No functions found in the changed files to evaluate docstring coverage. Skipping docstring coverage check.
Linked Issues check	✅ Passed	Check skipped because no linked issues were found for this pull request.
Out of Scope Changes check	✅ Passed	Check skipped because no linked issues were found for this pull request.

_{✏️ Tip: You can configure your own custom pre-merge checks in the settings.}

✨ Finishing Touches

🧪 Generate unit tests (beta)

• Create PR with unit tests
• Commit unit tests in branch ci/migrate-vs2026

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