tools,win: upgrade install additional tools to Visual Studio 2026

[MikeMcC399]

Situation

• tools/msvs/install_tools/install_tools.bat installs Visual Studio 2022 (v17)

• The current version of Visual Studio is 2026 (v18), one version above.

Minimum versions for Visual Studio 2026 to run with node-gyp are:

• node-gyp@12.1.0 adds detection and support for Visual Studio 2026
• npm@11.6.3 includes node-gyp@12.1.0

These are currently given in the branches main, v25.x and expected in the next v24.x release. Branches v22.x and v20.x would be expected to remain on npm 10.x and so will not be eligible.

Branch	npm	Minimum versions available
main	11.8.0	YES
v25.x	11.8.0	YES
v24.x	11.6.2	NO
v24.x-staging	11.8.0	YES
v22.x	10.9.4	NO
v20.x	10.8.2	NO

Change

Update tools/msvs/install_tools/install_tools.bat from Visual Studio 2022 to 2026,

from Chocolatey package:

• https://chocolatey.org/packages/visualstudio2022-workload-vctools (Visual C++ build tools workload for Visual Studio 2022 Build Tools 1.0.0)

to

• https://chocolatey.org/packages/visualstudio2026-workload-vctools (Visual C++ build tools workload for Visual Studio 2026 Build Tools 1.0.0)

Logs

Upgraded:
 - chocolatey-compatibility.extension v1.0.0
 - chocolatey-core.extension v1.4.0
 - chocolatey-dotnetfx.extension v1.0.1
 - chocolatey-visualstudio.extension v1.13.0
 - chocolatey-windowsupdate.extension v1.0.5
 - dotnetfx v4.8.0.20220524
 - KB2919355 v1.0.20160915
 - KB2919442 v1.0.20160915
 - KB2999226 v1.0.20181019
 - KB3033929 v1.0.5
 - KB3035131 v1.0.3
 - python v3.14.2
 - python3 v3.14.2
 - python314 v3.14.2
 - vcredist140 v14.44.35211
 - vcredist2015 v14.0.24215.20170201
 - visualstudio2026buildtools v118.2.0
 - visualstudio2026-workload-vctools v1.0.0
 - visualstudio-installer v2.0.7

Size requirements

The current statement in the script is still accurate:

This will require about 7 GiB of free disk space, plus any space necessary to install Windows updates.

cc: @StefanStojanovic

[MikeMcC399]

I have now tested this end-to-end for Visual Studio 2026, building a node*.msi package, using it to install Node.js and then successfully installing an npm package that needs node-gyp.

Steps to verify

With Visual Studio Build Tools 2026 installed, add

• "Desktop development with C++" workload
• Individual components
  • C++ Clang Compiler for Windows
  • MSBuild support for LLVM (clang-cl) toolset
  • .NET SDK (includes .NET 10.0 Runtime (Long Term Support))
    and Python 3.14.2 (current latest)

Execute .\vcbuild release msi in a PowerShell 7.5.4 terminal window in this PR branch.

Save node-v26.0.0-x64.msi

Reboot

Uninstall:

• Visual Studio Build Tools using Visual Studio Installer
• Visual Studio Installer
• Python, Python Installer
• Node.js and any Node Version Manager

Delete C:\ProgramData\chocolatey, C:\ProgramData\ChocolateyHttpCache and user / system environment variables referencing Chocolatey (may delete other unrelated packages) if present

Execute node-v26.0.0-x64.msi, select "Tools for Native Modules"

Confirm that:

• Visual Studio Build Tools 2026 with workload "Desktop development with C++" is re-installed
• Python 3.14 is re-installed

Uninstall Node.js 26.0.0-pre
Install node-v25.5.0-x64.msi, do not select "Tools for Native Modules"

Confirm that the following is able to install in a Git for Windows terminal. This uses node-gyp and Visual Studio:

cd $(mktemp -d)
npm install cpu-features