Inconsistent version on hosted agents

[alastairUK]

Description

Not sure if this is the right place to report this.

I am using hosted agents but the version for Windows 2022 is inconsistent which is causing me issues as the VS version is different and we fix our builds to specific versions

Platforms affected

• Azure DevOps
• GitHub Actions - Standard Runners
• GitHub Actions - Larger Runners

Runner images affected

• Ubuntu 20.04
• Ubuntu 22.04
• Ubuntu 24.04
• macOS 13
• macOS 13 Arm64
• macOS 14
• macOS 14 Arm64
• macOS 15
• macOS 15 Arm64
• Windows Server 2019
• Windows Server 2022
• Windows Server 2025

Image version and build link

Starting: Initialize job Agent name: 'Azure Pipelines 2' Agent machine name: 'fv-az760-346' Current agent version: '4.251.0' Operating System Microsoft Windows Server 2022 10.0.20348 Datacenter Runner Image Image: windows-2022 Version: 20250224.5.0 Included Software: https://github.com/actions/runner-images/blob/win22/20250224.5/images/windows/Windows2022-Readme.md Image Release: https://github.com/actions/runner-images/releases/tag/win22%2F20250224.5 Runner Image Provisioner 2.0.422.1 Current image version: '20250224.5.0' Agent running as: 'VssAdministrator' Prepare build directory. Set build variables.

Starting: Initialize job Agent name: 'Azure Pipelines 2' Agent machine name: 'fv-az784-938' Current agent version: '4.251.0' Operating System Microsoft Windows Server 2022 10.0.20348 Datacenter Runner Image Image: windows-2022 Version: 20250209.1.0 Included Software: https://github.com/actions/runner-images/blob/win22/20250209.1/images/windows/Windows2022-Readme.md Image Release: https://github.com/actions/runner-images/releases/tag/win22%2F20250209.1 Runner Image Provisioner 2.0.422.1 Current image version: '20250209.1.0' Agent running as: 'VssAdministrator' Prepare build directory.

These were run within 30 mins of each other

Is it regression?

Yes in the sense I haven't seen this behaviour before

Expected behavior

I'd expect all the agents to have the same image (maybe not instantaneously but this has been happening for the past 24 hrs)

Actual behavior

The agent has one of two versions (randomly) either the old - 20250209.1.0 or new 20250224.5.0

Repro steps

Azure pipeline, C++ project, Windows-Server-2022, check VS version

`echo Try to find the latest VC2022 version

DIR "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\Enterprise\VC\Tools\MSVC"`

[vidyasagarnimmagaddi]

Hi @alastairUK , Thank you for bringing this issue to our attention. We will look into this issue and will update you after investigating.