Visual Studio 18 2026

Added in version 4.2.

Generates Visual Studio 18 (VS 2026) project files.

Project Types

Only Visual C++ and C# projects may be generated (and Fortran with Intel compiler integration). Other types of projects (JavaScript, Powershell, Python, etc.) are not supported.

Instance Selection

VS 2026 supports multiple installations on the same machine. The CMAKE_GENERATOR_INSTANCE variable may be used to select one.

Platform Selection

The default target platform name (architecture) is that of the host and is provided in the CMAKE_VS_PLATFORM_NAME_DEFAULT variable.

The CMAKE_GENERATOR_PLATFORM variable may be set, perhaps via the cmake -A option, to specify a target platform name (architecture). For example:

  • cmake -G "Visual Studio 18 2026" -A Win32

  • cmake -G "Visual Studio 18 2026" -A x64

  • cmake -G "Visual Studio 18 2026" -A ARM

  • cmake -G "Visual Studio 18 2026" -A ARM64

Toolset Selection

The v145 toolset that comes with VS 18 2026 is selected by default. The CMAKE_GENERATOR_TOOLSET option may be set, perhaps via the cmake -T option, to specify another toolset.

For each toolset that comes with this version of Visual Studio, there are variants that are themselves compiled for 32-bit (x86) and 64-bit (x64) hosts (independent of the architecture they target). By default this generator uses the 64-bit variant on x64 hosts and the 32-bit variant otherwise. One may explicitly request use of either the 32-bit or 64-bit host tools by adding either host=x86 or host=x64 to the toolset specification. See the CMAKE_GENERATOR_TOOLSET variable for details.