Rakudo doesn't build on GitHub "windows-latest"... and any recent Windows OS and/or MSVC release?!

[AntonOks]

The Problem

• My kickstarter was, Rakudo builds are constantly failing on my private Windows11 based workstation
• My tests on GitHub proof, Rakudo doesn't seem to compile on a recent Windows OS release (maybe because of | with newer MSVC releases?)

ERROR from the original GitHub build log:

...
...
~~~ snip ~~~

The following step can take a long time, please be patient.
	"C:\Strawberry\perl\bin\perl.exe" rakudo-m-early-build --setting=NULL.c --ll-exception --optimize=3 --target=mbc --stagestats --output=blib\CORE.c.setting.moarvm "gen\moar\CORE.c.setting"
Stage start      :   0.000
Stage parse      :  68.123
Stage syntaxcheck:   0.000
Stage ast        :   0.000
Stage optimize   : NMAKE :  U1077: '"C:\Strawberry\perl\bin\perl.exe" rakudo-m-early-build --setting=NULL.c --ll-exception --optimize=3 --target=mbc --stagestats --output=blib\CORE.c.setting.moarvm "gen\moar\CORE.c.setting"' : return code '0xff'

---

Eye catcher - Raku version (???):

• This failing job, see above, has c in NULL.c and CORE.c.setting...
• The working job has d in NULL.d and CORE.d.setting...

Expected Behavior

Rakudo builds / compiles successful on recent Windows releases, like Windows11 or Server 2022, say GitHub's "windows-latest", as on older Windows OS releases, say "windows-2019" (with older MSVC installs), see the successful GitHub "windows-2019" runner log example

Actual Behavior

Rakudo build / compile jobs on Windows11 and on "GitHub latest" stops with an error, see the failing GitHub "windows-latest" runner log example

Steps to Reproduce

Well... try it on the available GitHub windows runners?!

Environment

• working Windows 2019 GitHub runner
• failing Windows 2022 aka latest GitHub runner

[patrickbkr]

The working output has three such Stage ... blocks. One for c, one for d and one for e. The failing one fails on the first. So the error has nothing to do with the Raku version.

[AntonOks]

@lizmat @ab5tract @jdv

Can someone, who has superpowers and builds Rakudo releases outside GitHub Actions / Workflows, i.e. on Azure Pipelines, please verify if Windows builds do work on something like Windows Server 2022 there?

It would be good if someone with more knowledge would look into the failing Windows 2022 logs, see above, and tries to find our whats the matter with the GitHub Windows 2022 runner or its tool chain... because we will end up without working Windows builds as far as Microsoft decides to discontinue Windows 2019 runners (it will then happen on GitHub and Azure almost at the same time) :|

[ab5tract]

I will try to poke at this a bit, but hopefully someone with more Windows build experience can hop in too.