My next task is to see if I can get the visual studio extension working. Its not updated and released for 5.4 yet and I have created a request for that in Developer Community. That link also has a workaround which I haven’t tried to check if it works but at this point I would rather wait for the extension to be officially released. Maybe a few votes would make it a priority .
This didn’t solve all of the problems, but got the ball rolling again. Apparently, in 5.3.2, it’s a good idea to verify the engine’s files after updating Visual Studio.
Update: bit the bullet and started building Unreal from source. Indeed, the fixes described here for BgScriptReader and CheckForHacks fix all problems related to the AutomationTool. I’m currently working on the AutoRTFMTests, which seems to be just a missing download.
Update #2: The AutoRTFMTests project is internal to Epic and requires code not available to the public; it shouldn’t be built by licensees. So just unmark the project in the Build/Configuration Manager window in Visual Studio and it will be skipped, removing the error.
Now in March 2025 I can confirm that this solution worked flawlessly for compiling a C++ UE 5.3.2 project in Microsoft Visual Studio Community 2022 (64 bits) Version 17.13.2. But before editing these 2 files, I verified the engine installation through the EPIC Games Launcher just to ensure everything was ok before editing these files.
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