How to fix Unreal Engine 4.18.1 stuck at Initializing 45%

On a slow machine it can take even 30mins.

There’s quite a bit of shaders to re-compile. You can hit Ctrl+Shift+Esc (Task Manager) and check if the UE4 is sitting at 100% CPU - this just means it has not crashed, it’s just doing its thing.

Worry not, it’s a pretty standard behaviour.

If your laptop does not have a dedicated GPU, you might not be able to launch the editor, though. Even if it does run, expect abysmally bad performance.

Hope it helps!