@TMrTony thank you for your feedback! You reminded me that the build tasks are in the JSON file and that helped!
I reinstalled Visual Studio Community 2022, was able to find the Unreal Engine tools under Desktop C++ Game Dev. One error I realized I made is that after changing Edit->Editor Preferences->General->Source Code Editor between Visual Studio and VS Code, I did not do Tools->Refresh [VS Code Project]. When I then opened the proj manually in VS Code the build tasks were not set up. But once I Refreshed they worked in either Visual Studio or VS Code.
Some additional problems that confused me listed here in case they help anyone:
I had a “code 6 error” during build tasks and this was cause the IDE did not like UEEditor open in background. Closing and rebuilding fixed but I didn’t have to do this on OSX.
Still a noob to UE and C++ dev (am good with code in general but each toolchain/IDE is its own work) so after I added Tools->New C++ Class, I did not “drag” it from Content Pane->C++ Classes into the game world and was not able to see its updated C++ code function until I did so.
But after mindfully addressing these points I have my learner project updating and building! Thanks!