Installing Unreal Engine 4.27 (and possibly 5)

[TravisG]

I know I am grasping at air, but ayn help is greatly appreciated. Following practices of most universities, our students don't have administrative rights. We used to use DeepFreeze, but ran into problems with updates, GPOs, and just a hassle altogether. So we went with whitelisting, deleting profiles, and marking most of the C:\ drive as read-only. Not only do not have to worry about thawing and freezing, but it allows us to instantly deploy new programs easily.

 

Anywho, I have a professor who is teaching using the Unreal Engine. Now, on my personal time, I personally use teh Epic Games Launcher for my games. However, it looks like Unreal is only tied to the Launcher, which requires administrative rights to at least update it. Now I can pre-isntall the pre-reqs, but not sure if I am missing anything else. I tried to download the source code from Github, and compile it using VS Studio 2022, but it seems likes a hassle. And I'm no compiling expert, but would this build work across similar machines, or only the machine I'm building it for?

 

With all of that said, is there anyway to truly install the engine? I know it can't be done silently, but if I can do it one box, and then deploy it to the classroom and create shortcuts, that would be extremely helpful.

[Rizzo]

Hi,

 

Yes we deploy it silently with SCCM, have a look at this it might help you. I've used it few times now. July, I packaged up UE5 early release using it.

 

 

Our computers are locked down and run applocker and it works for us.

 

Not going to lie, it took a 2/3 days to get in all working.

 

Then we update the package a few times a year.

 

Hope the above helps.

Edited November 19, 2021 by Rizzo
Appblocker to applocker, always get it wrong.

[TravisG]

Hi,

 

Yes we deploy it silently with SCCM, have a look at this it might help you. I've used it few times now. July, I packaged up UE5 early release using it.

 

 

Our computers are locked down and run applocker and it works for us.

 

Not going to lie, it took a 2/3 days to get in all working.

 

Then we update the package a few times a year.

 

Hope the above helps.

 

This is extremely helpful. Not sure why I couldn't fine this post. Anywho, when you say the method worked for you, which one are you referring to? There's two in the comments, and then the Rich guy on his blog.

 

Also, do you need to have the launcher installed to use it? It looks like you can call UE4Editor.exe, but I guess it needs the Launcher if that's the case. Students will be using their domain accounts, and I would like to prevent them from attempting to install anything else from the Launcher if possible.

 

Again, thanks for the help!

[Rizzo]

The really long replies from WhatLemons at the top (Sorted by Best).

 

Yes, I install the launcher but I think you can get away with creating a shortcut straight to UE4Editor.exe. In the instructions there's a bit about changing the launcher shortcut. Everything is installed in its default install locations (Program files), and users just use their standard domain accounts.

 

Have fun!

[TravisG]

The really long replies from WhatLemons at the top (Sorted by Best).

 

Yes, I install the launcher but I think you can get away with creating a shortcut straight to UE4Editor.exe. In the instructions there's a bit about changing the launcher shortcut. Everything is installed in its default install locations (Program files), and users just use their standard domain accounts.

 

Have fun!

 

Alright, did you run into issues not seeing the manifest files?This is all I have:

PS C:\ProgramData\Epic\EpicGamesLauncher\Data\Manifests> gci -Recurse | select fullname

FullName
--------
C:\ProgramData\Epic\EpicGamesLauncher\Data\Manifests\Pending
C:\ProgramData\Epic\EpicGamesLauncher\Data\Manifests\96C4EF59435D60A882E1B28ADDB37329.item

 

Also, are you in LTSB/C or running 20H2 (or some other Enterprise version)?

 

I'll reach out on the reddit post, but since it's two years old, not hopeful I would get a reply.

Edited November 19, 2021 by TravisG

[Rizzo]

HI,

 

I can't remember having problems of missing manifest files. The instructions were a life saver. I'm not updating UE5 until next month. Having a quick check I'm copying three files down, two for UE and the third for RocketLeague

 

We're running on Win 10 Ent x64 20H2.

[TravisG]

Again, definitely appreciate the reddit. This is to help people in the future. I can confirm this works on the date of me writing this post in Windows 10 21H2.

Here is my list of files. Here is the command batch I use. I deploy this via MECM v2107. The DirectX is probably overkill, but better than nothing. I'm using the 2015 C++ Redsitrb files. Lastly, my PowerShell script installs .NET 3.5 based off the OS. Even though Add-Capability should work, I just use dism and grab the files from the sxs folder. Everything else is explained in the post above.

Edited November 23, 2021 by TravisG

[BirtyBassett]

I have been installing UE for a few years now on our lab machines but they have asked for the Launcher so I'm just looking at that. How do you get around the launcher updating / elevating at launch? I found the -noselfupdate switch but it doesn't appear to work.

[TravisG]

Hi Birty,

 

I don't remember about preventing updates, but I think it's about changing something in the manifest files. I'm honestly not sure.

 

Since I deployed this in November, it's been stuck on 4.27.1. I probably need to upgrade to 5 (is it out of beta?), but haven't had time to dig into it. The launcher trick is pretty much copying files to Program Files and granting access to either "Everyone" group or "Domain Users." For our labs, it really doesn't matter since we have login restrictions.