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How to make Windows CI faster

Windows jobs take three times as long as the equivalent Linux jobs.

6 min read

Windows jobs take three times as long as the equivalent Linux jobs.

Why it happens

Windows boots more slowly, Defender scans everything the checkout writes, and NuGet restore is network-chatty.

How to fix it

  1. Exclude the workspace from Defender real-time scanning
  2. Cache ~/.nuget/packages and restore with --locked-mode
  3. Build with MSBuild -m for parallel project builds
  4. Use a provider with warm Windows pools to remove the boot cost

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