failure and crashes installing or building boost 1.90.0 in Visual Studio 2026 c++ solution even with v143 build tools installed

[donr484]

Is there any way to use boost in Visual Studio 2026 c++ solutions using msvc and the latest everything?

I tried downloading the latest 1.90.0 and building, but it failed (complaining about not having v143 build tools).

I tried installing the v143 build tools and forcing those to build boost, but it failed.

I tried adding boost to my vcpkg.json dependencies, updating baseline, and vcpkg install, but it failed. This locked up my pc and forced me to cold restart to get responsiveness again.

I tried using git to get the latest vcpkg before install, and it failed. This crashed my pc into oblivion, forcing a cold restart to get back into windows. (I reported this to the vcpkg github repo.)

Note that I'm new to c++, so any help is appreciated. I've been relying on microsoft.copilot.com to get me this far, but I've hit a wall.

[donr484]

I removed boost as a dependency in vcpkg.json, then added about 20 or so individual boost components that I wanted to try.

vcpkg install was able to finish without crashing my pc, but it failed for boost-url. I made sure I wasn't using #include for boost-url.

I then tried to do a rebuild of my solution and it froze my pc. I had to cold reboot to get responsiveness again.

The last build messages i saw were waiting for lock on .vcpkg-root during the release build. (Similar messages happened before that on the debug build, but didn't lock up my pc.)

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Next I tried removing all but the 2 boost components I was actually using in code from dependencies and #includes (lexical_cast and thread).

Vcpkg install worked without errors.

Building the solution finally worked without crashing.

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There are major issues no matter how you try to put boost in your solution.

I feel that I should be able to add boost as a dependency and vcpkg install should work without crashing my pc.

I feel that I should be able to #include some of the boost components after that and building the solution shouldn't crash my pc.

Let me know if there is anything more I can do. Thanks.