Have any of you run into issues installing the Windows SDK using winsdksetup.exe?
Microsoft’s instructions for setting up a driver build environment with the WDK includes three steps, the second of which is to install the Windows SDK 10.0.22621.2428 (released October 24, 2023). The download link for the Windows SDK pulls down the winsdksetup.exe installer file.
When I run this winsdksetup.exe (typically from my Downloads directory) by launching it from the Explorer/GUI shell, it lets me select the features I wish to install and then it downloads them but after downloading them it simply tells me to go to the directory to which it’s downloaded the features and to run the winsdksetup.exe file in that location. However, when I run that winsdksetup.exe from that location, it simply prompts me to specify the desired features and re-downloads the features I specify, but does NOT install any of them, and then it tells me to run winsdksetup.exe to install. It’s like this installer is stuck in a loop where it will only download features but never actually install them. I also of course tried running it from the command-line using all kinds of permutations of valid parameters to see if I could provoke any different behavior, but that didn’t help. I tried this on three different Windows 11 Pro machines and had the same issue so I suspect I’m not the only one seeing this.
The WDK setup instructions says that the “provided links for the SDK and the WDK have matching build numbers, which is always required for the kits to work together.” However if this Windows SDK install issue is affecting everybody then apparently we’re all building drivers just fine without having perfectly matching SDK and WDK build numbers. So perhaps the SDK files that come with the VS2022 install (which are version 10.0.22621.0 rather than 10.0.22621.2428) are good enough… ?
Incidentally I also tried installing this version of the Windows SDK using the downloadable ISO but that installer actually errors out.