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This article describes GDK support for Visual Studio 2026. Visual Studio 2026 supports Microsoft Game Development Kit (GDK) development.

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Installing Visual Studio 2026

The GDK supports development with either the Professional edition or the Enterprise edition of Visual Studio 2026. The Community edition isn’t supported.
GDK Visual Studio extension (VSIX) components aren’t supported on ARM-based devices. To use GDK Visual Studio project templates, property pages, and debugging extensions, install the GDK on an x64-based development PC.
When installing Visual Studio 2026, select the Game development with C++ workload during setup as shown in the following screenshot. In addition to the core C++ tools that you need for game development, make sure the Windows 10 SDK (22000) component is installed to provide the Windows SDK required to build games with the GDK. You can also use the *Windows SDK for Windows 11, Version 22H2 (10.0.22621), or Windows SDK for Windows 11, Version 24H2 (10.0.26100), but they’re not required. While not required, installing the Desktop development with C++ workload provides more tools and samples that you might find helpful. For example, Desktop development with C++ is required if you’re building with the Clang/LLVM toolset.

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Installing optional toolsets

The Game development with C++ workload installs the Visual Studio 2026 version of the MSVC build tools (version v145). In addition to the v145 toolset, the GDK also supports building with the following toolsets:
  • v143 (the Visual Studio 2019 toolset)
  • v142 (the Visual Studio 2019 toolset)
  • the C++ Clang tools for windows
This flexibility allows you to upgrade to the Visual Studio 2026 IDE without updating your toolset. You can find the optional toolsets under the Desktop Development with C++ workload, or by searching the Individual Components in the Visual Studio installation dialog.

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Selecting a toolset for a project

Specify the toolset to use for a project by using the Platform Toolset property from the project’s property page. You can also manually specify the PlatformToolset property in the project file, as shown in the following property group.

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Visual Studio 2026 Servicing Model

Visual Studio 2026 includes a new servicing model that includes both an Insiders and Stable Channel. For more information, see Visual Studio Product Lifecycle and Servicing.

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Reporting bugs

Report bugs for the Visual C++ compiler (if possible) through Visual Studio Report a Problem…. See Microsoft Docs and the Developer Community website. For details on creating a good bug report for the compiler, see this page.
You can add a comment to a public report issue marked as “Microsoft only” if private information is required to reproduce the issue.
For bug reporting for the clang/LLVM for Windows compiler, use https://bugs.llvm.org/ For bug reports for the Microsoft Standard C++ Library (also known as STL), use https://github.com/microsoft/STL/issues As always, feel free to reach out to your Microsoft Representative for critical issues that need escalation.

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See also

Visual Studio Project templates in Visual Studio for XBOX development Visual Studio properties for XBOX development Debugging XBOX projects by using Visual Studio
Last modified on August 20, 2026

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