Hi ,
RE #1, this is possible, however it’s a bit of a manual process in 4.15. Apologies as I don’t believe this was documented. Here’s what you’ll need to do in order to build a nativized dedicated server EXE from within Visual Studio:
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Before you build the “server” target in VS, check the contents of your project folder (this should be after the File->Package Project->Win64 step for the client side). You should have an “Intermediate” folder that contains a “Plugins/WindowsNoEditor/NativizedAssets” folder.
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Right-click the folder and “Cut.” Then navigate back out to your project’s root folder (the one that contains the “Intermediate” folder). If it doesn’t exist, create a new folder called “Plugins”, then paste the “NativizedAssets” folder into it.
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Now switch back to Visual Studio and build the server target. It should pick up the sources from the NativizedAssets plugin folder.
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If you need to switch back to building the “Editor” config in Visual Studio, you’ll need to make sure to remove the “NativizedAssets” folder from the “Plugins” folder inside the root folder of your project. Generally you can just move it back into the “Intermediate/Plugins/WindowsNoEditor” folder.
FWIW, this process was improved a bit in 4.17 as the .uproject file is auto-updated to include the intermediate plugins folder when you change the nativization method inside the Project Packaging settings. That helps to avoid the need to manually copy the plugin folder around when switching between building editor/game/server configs in VS. However it does have a few issues we’ve since found that are still being ironed out.
Let me know if this does not work for you, hope this helps!