diff --git a/.github/workflows/release.yml b/.github/workflows/release.yml
index 6a898c5..95b6362 100644
--- a/.github/workflows/release.yml
+++ b/.github/workflows/release.yml
@@ -154,13 +154,15 @@ jobs:
           # Windows build needs the OpenSSL install path so find_package(OpenSSL)
           # in CMakeLists.txt succeeds, otherwise HTTPS upload (gpufl::uploadLogs)
           # silently falls back to HTTP-only - see openssl-windows.html in the
-          # manual repo for the user-facing story. CIBW_BEFORE_ALL_WINDOWS
-          # installs choco's openssl package into this path.
+          # manual repo for the user-facing story. The windows-2022 runner image
+          # preinstalls the full OpenSSL 3.x (headers + import libs) at this
+          # path. CMAKE_REQUIRE_FIND_PACKAGE_OpenSSL turns the QUIET lookup into
+          # a hard error, so a missing OpenSSL fails the build instead.
           CIBW_ENVIRONMENT_WINDOWS: >-
-            OPENSSL_ROOT_DIR="C:/Program Files/OpenSSL-Win64"
+            OPENSSL_ROOT_DIR="C:/Program Files/OpenSSL"
             CMAKE_GENERATOR="Visual Studio 17 2022"
             CMAKE_GENERATOR_PLATFORM="x64"
-            CMAKE_ARGS="-DGPUFL_ENABLE_NVIDIA=ON -DGPUFL_ENABLE_AMD=OFF -DBUILD_TESTING=OFF"
+            CMAKE_ARGS="-DGPUFL_ENABLE_NVIDIA=ON -DGPUFL_ENABLE_AMD=OFF -DBUILD_TESTING=OFF -DCMAKE_REQUIRE_FIND_PACKAGE_OpenSSL=ON"
           # cuda-nvml-devel-13-1 ships the libnvidia-ml.so stub under
           # targets/x86_64-linux/lib/stubs/ - without it CMake's NVML probe
           # finds nothing and (since v0.1.1) fails the build loudly. Every
@@ -178,13 +180,13 @@ jobs:
           CIBW_BEFORE_ALL_LINUX: >-
             curl -fsSL https://developer.download.nvidia.com/compute/cuda/repos/rhel8/x86_64/cuda-rhel8.repo > /etc/yum.repos.d/cuda.repo &&
             dnf install -y --nogpgcheck cuda-nvcc-13-1 cuda-cudart-devel-13-1 cuda-cupti-13-1 cuda-driver-devel-13-1 cuda-nvml-devel-13-1 openssl3-devel
-          # Install OpenSSL on the Windows runner so find_package(OpenSSL)
-          # in CMakeLists.txt succeeds and cpp-httplib gets compiled with
-          # CPPHTTPLIB_OPENSSL_SUPPORT=1. Chocolatey is pre-installed on
-          # GitHub's windows-latest runners; the openssl package installs
-          # to C:\Program Files\OpenSSL-Win64\ (matches OPENSSL_ROOT_DIR
-          # in CIBW_ENVIRONMENT_WINDOWS above).
-          CIBW_BEFORE_ALL_WINDOWS: choco install -y openssl --no-progress
+          # Use the OpenSSL the windows-2022 image already installs at
+          # C:\Program Files\OpenSSL (actions/runner-images Install-OpenSSL.ps1)
+          # rather than `choco install openssl`, whose installer download from
+          # slproweb.com fails on GitHub-hosted runners. This logs the version
+          # being bundled and fails fast if the install is missing.
+          CIBW_BEFORE_ALL_WINDOWS: >-
+            "C:\Program Files\OpenSSL\bin\openssl.exe" version
           # cibuildwheel ships NO default Windows repair command and only
           # auto-installs delvewheel for that (nonexistent) default. Because
           # we override CIBW_REPAIR_WHEEL_COMMAND_WINDOWS below (to pass
@@ -219,13 +221,13 @@ jobs:
           # On Windows, cibuildwheel's default is `delvewheel repair`.
           # We need delvewheel to find the OpenSSL DLLs (libssl-3-x64.dll,
           # libcrypto-3-x64.dll) so it copies them into the wheel. The
-          # choco install puts them under C:\Program Files\OpenSSL-Win64\bin\
+          # runner image keeps them under C:\Program Files\OpenSSL\bin\
           # - give that to delvewheel via --add-path. Without this, the
           # rebuilt wheel imports cleanly on a system that already has
           # OpenSSL on PATH but fails on a clean machine.
           # delvewheel vendors the wheel's DLL deps. We must:
           #  * --add-path the dirs holding the DLLs to bundle. OpenSSL is in
-          #    its choco bin; cudart64_*.dll is in CUDA\vX.Y\bin (on PATH, but
+          #    its bin; cudart64_*.dll is in CUDA\vX.Y\bin (on PATH, but
           #    listed for safety); cupti64_*.dll lives in CUDA's
           #    extras\CUPTI\lib64, which is NOT on PATH - without it delvewheel
           #    fails with "Unable to find library: cupti64_2025.4.0.dll". We
@@ -241,7 +243,7 @@ jobs:
           # step). Both --add-path and --exclude are ';'-delimited.
           CIBW_REPAIR_WHEEL_COMMAND_WINDOWS: >-
             delvewheel repair
-            --add-path "C:\\Program Files\\OpenSSL-Win64\\bin;C:\\Program Files\\NVIDIA GPU Computing Toolkit\\CUDA\\v13.1\\bin;C:\\Program Files\\NVIDIA GPU Computing Toolkit\\CUDA\\v13.1\\extras\\CUPTI\\lib64"
+            --add-path "C:\\Program Files\\OpenSSL\\bin;C:\\Program Files\\NVIDIA GPU Computing Toolkit\\CUDA\\v13.1\\bin;C:\\Program Files\\NVIDIA GPU Computing Toolkit\\CUDA\\v13.1\\extras\\CUPTI\\lib64"
             --exclude "nvcuda.dll;nvml.dll"
             -w {dest_dir} {wheel}