How to correctly configure prerequisites for Steam Deck?

Development Platform & Builds
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My UE 5.4 project is working great on PC and OSX, but I’m having some wrinkles when deploying my PC build on Steam Deck.

Every single time I run, I get:
“The following component(s) are required to run this program: Microsoft Visual C++ Runtime. Would you like to install them now?”

If I hit yes, then it runs the unreal prereq installer and I get into my game, great.

If I quit and run my game again, I get the same initial popup, and then when I hit “yes” I’m brought to Unreal’s prereq UNinstaller. It uninstalls the prereq…and then my game still opens file.

So it flip flops between installing and uninstalling every other run.

This happens both when deploying with the SteamOS Devkit Client, and when deploying through Steamworks and downloading through the Steam client directly. In Steamworks, I do have the VC++ 2022 redistributable selected.

I am packaging my game with -prereqs (when I don’t, I get the same initial popup but without the option to install now, just an OK button and then the app closes). It also happens when I use a build I just package from the editor with default settings.

Since the game works with the prerequisites uninstalled…seems there is something fishy going on here. Does anyone else see this? Any ideas for what to try?

I wasn’t sure if it was just a problem with my Steam Deck but it’s happening to my teammates as well.

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I’m having this exact same issue - have likewise tried with/without prereq’s included in the build, and have the steamworks redistributables included.

Haven’t been able to figure out a solution yet.

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Same here, exactly as you described. If I start it again after installing the prerequisite then it will uninstall them and still launch fine.

I didn’t have this issue a couple of weeks ago, not sure if it was 5.4 or a proton update (?) that brought this on but it’s slightly annoying.

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I’m having the same issue on 5.4 and I don’t remember it happening on earlier versions of the engine but I might have just been lucky before. Hopefully someone will reply here with the answer.

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Just commenting here in case anyone ever comes up with a solution.

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I have the exact same problem. This is not an issue when using Unreal Engine 5.3, but started happening when updating to Unreal Engine 5.4.

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I am having the exact same issue. I also get the same behavior and prompt when trying to launch the executable on Windows from Pix to get a capture

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Sounds like it’s not just me. I’m curious if this is a ‘broken for everyone’ problem or if anyone out there is running on Deck just fine with 5.4. Even though my team isn’t close to launch, we do a lot of testing on deck and have some playtests coming up, so this bug is troublesome, I’m eager to find a fix or workaround.

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Now that I know it’s not just me or just my project, I’ve submitted a bug report to Epic, I’ll update here if they create a ticket.

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We’re hitting this as well. Has anyone tried this on 5.4.3 ?

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It looks like there were some significant rewrites to the bootstrapper in 5.4 if anyone with more expertise than me wants to take a look: https://github.com/EpicGames/UnrealEngine/blob/release/Engine/Source/Programs/Windows/BootstrapPackagedGame/Private/BootstrapPackagedGame.cpp

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well same . pretty wierd. Someone know how to fix that?

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Just commenting to confirm I’m having the same issue. Hopefully a resolution is on the way!

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Same issue here… a small number of Windows users also run into the issue, but can fix there by manually reinstalling/repairing vc redist

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We’ve been able to work around this by using a custom engine build that reverts all of the files in Window/BootstrapPackagedGame directory to (i think) this commit https://github.com/EpicGames/UnrealEngine/commit/d785b5b71b09ae28403e107dc632d4905fb89c42

Basically we’re opting into the pre-5.4.0 codepath. Is this going to cause problems by using a VC version number mismatched with the prerequisite installer? I don’t know! Steam will handle your prereqs for you and nobody has complained yet. YMMV.

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Adding another “same here” to the pile. Would be great if Epic could resolve this for 5.4.x users

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Same here !

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Same here. The workaround mentioned above, with a custom engine build, is not practical for us. I really hope this can be resolved before 5.5.

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Same here. This is a real pain in the butt.

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Just tested using Unreal Engine 5.4.4, but the bug is unfortunately still present

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