nv_decode.h as part of CUDA - for installation on action runners

[eyalroz]

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In my repository's .github, I have an action script which installs CUDA on the runner building my code. This all fine and good, but recently, I've noticed that a header file that's part of the CUDA distribution on Linux does not seem to be part of it on Windows, or at least - not in the packages I can notice.

The header is nv_decode.h. It is used for name demangling. As I've started rleying on its presence - all of my Windows builds are failing.

It's possible that it is actually part of the CUDA Windows distribution - but I can't figure out in which one of the packages... any insight would be greatly appreciated.

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[eyalroz]

Ping... hoping that someone can shed any light on this.

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[eyalroz]

Still waiting for someone at GitHub/Microsoft to say anything...

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[eyalroz]

And again, still waiting for someone at GitHub/Microsoft to say anything...

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[eyalroz]

Still waiting for a comment.

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[PRIYAtechky]

nv_decode.h is not included in the standard CUDA Toolkit installation on Windows.
That header is part of the NVIDIA Video Codec SDK, not the base CUDA toolkit.

• On Linux, some distributions bundle parts of the Video Codec SDK headers with CUDA, which is why you may see it there.
• On Windows, you need to download the Video Codec SDK separately and add its include path to your build.

👉 Steps to fix your Windows builds:

1. Download the NVIDIA Video Codec SDK from NVIDIA’s developer site:
   https://developer.nvidia.com/nvidia-video-codec-sdk
2. Extract it and point your project to the Interface folder, which contains nv_decode.h and related headers.
3. Update your build workflow (in GitHub Actions) to copy or reference this SDK during setup on Windows runners.

✅ Summary:
The file is not missing—it's simply not part of the Windows CUDA Toolkit. You’ll need to explicitly include the Video Codec SDK in your build process to have nv_decode.h available.

[eyalroz]

@PRIYAtechky :

nv_decode.h is not included in the standard CUDA Toolkit installation on Windows. That header is part of the NVIDIA Video Codec SDK, not the base CUDA toolkit.

I don't think that's possible. That header has exactly one function:

char* __cu_demangle(const char *id,
                        char *output_buffer,
                        size_t *length,
                        int *status);

and this has nothing to do with video. It's possible that the video codec SDK has another header with the same basename, but from a different folder - but it's not this one.

... also, I just checked the downloadable header files, and those are: cuviddec.h, nvcuvid.h, nvEncodeAPI.h - and that's it.

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[eyalroz]

Still waiting on this.