runner-images

To use Generation 2 VM images on Azure, update the SKU references in your deployment or image build configuration:

**Windows Server 2025:** Change the SKU from 2025-Datacenter to 2025-Datacenter-g2. The -g2 suffix explicitly selects the Generation 2 image.

**Ubuntu 24.04 LTS:** Change the SKU from server-gen1 to server. The plain server SKU is the canonical default for Ubuntu 24.04 and is already Generation 2 — the -gen1 variant must be removed.

After updating, redeploy or rebuild your images to pick up Gen2 support (required for features like UEFI boot, Trusted Launch, and larger VM sizes).

Maven 3.10.0 introduces stricter POM validation, so builds that worked with Maven 3.9.16 can fail or produce deployment errors such as "Bundle has content that does NOT have a .pom file." As a workaround, pin Maven 3.9.16 in CI instead of using the Maven version preinstalled on ubuntu-24.04. For Azure DevOps, add this before the Maven build:

- bash: |
set -euo pipefail
curl -fsSL https://archive.apache.org/dist/maven/maven-3/3.9.16/binaries/apache-maven-3.9.16-bin.tar.gz -o /tmp/maven.tar.gz
mkdir -p "$HOME/tools"
tar -xzf /tmp/maven.tar.gz -C "$HOME/tools"
echo "##vso[task.prependpath]$HOME/tools/apache-maven-3.9.16/bin"

Verify with mvn -version, then run the deployment. On GitHub Actions, replace the Azure DevOps prepend command with:

echo "$HOME/tools/apache-maven-3.9.16/bin" >> "$GITHUB_PATH"

The permanent fix is to update the POM so it is compatible with Maven 3.10.0 validation, or keep Maven pinned to 3.9.16 until that is done.