I can’t figure out why UE5.8.1 keeps trying to build with Visual Studio 2022 despite having 2026 and UE 5.8 documentation stating 2026 is supported. What am I doing wrong here? Do I still need to have 2022 installed? Below is the error output I get. Note I’ve censored the project file paths.
Running C:/Program Files/Epic Games/UE_5.8/Engine/Build/BatchFiles/Build.bat -projectfiles -project="PROJECT_PATH/PROJECT.uproject" -game -rocket -progress -log="PROJECT_PATH/Saved/Logs/UnrealVersionSelector-2026.08.12-12.46.56.log"
Using bundled DotNet SDK version: 10.0 win-x64
Running UnrealBuildTool: dotnet "..\..\Engine\Binaries\DotNET\UnrealBuildTool\UnrealBuildTool.dll" -projectfiles -project="PROJECT_PATH/PROJECT.uproject" -game -rocket -progress -log="PROJECT_PATH/Saved/Logs/UnrealVersionSelector-2026.08.12-12.46.56.log"
Log file: PROJECT_PATH\Saved\Logs\UnrealVersionSelector-2026.08.12-12.46.56.log
Generating VisualStudio2022 project files:
Discovering modules, targets and source code for project...
Visual Studio C++ 2022 installation not found - ignoring preferred project file format.
Writing 'PROJEC_PATHT\Automation_PROJECT.sln'...
Writing 'PROJECT_PATH\Automation_PROJECT.slnx'...
Writing automation project files took 0.15s
Adding projects for all targets...
Adding projects for all targets took 2.55s
Visual Studio 2022 x64 must be installed in order to build this target.
Result: Failed (OtherCompilationError)
Total execution time: 5.02 seconds
Trace written to file LOCALDATA_PATH\UnrealBuildTool\Trace.uba with size 4.0kb