Packaging a C++ Desktop Project with a Precompiled UE 553 Engine Custom Build

Development Programming & Scripting
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1

Hello,
We have not been able to package for any platform with a precompiled UE553 Custom build until we commented out the line n°1105 <Tag Files="#Build Tools Win64" Filter="$(Win64StripFilter)" Except="$(Win64StripExceptions);$(CopyInstalledExceptions)" With="#Strip Tools for Installed Win64"/> in the build node “Make Installed Build Win64” of “Engine/Build/InstalledEngineBuild.xml”. After that we have been able to package with the precompiled UE 553 engine build for PS4 and Switch but not for Win64 for which the packaging end up with a link error due to unresolved symbols once it finished compiling.
My question is: Should we be able to package for any platform with a precompiled engine UE553 build without any modification, or did Epic never intended for us to be able to package with a precompiled UE553 engine build ? (which would explain why they strip build tools like UnrealPack in the xml as explained at the begining of this post)

PS: I tested some old precompiled UE 5.3/5.4.4 custom builds and they do package for Win64 without any modification. Therefore the problem comes from our side.

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After spending some time circling this problem we have been able to figure some things out concerning Precompiled Engine builds and packaging.

  1. Depending on the version of Visual Studio, the precompiled engine build can fail. Always use the versions recommanded by Epic althought if you use Visual Community you are always stuck with the latest version.
  2. The machine on which the precompiled engine is built and the machine using the precompiled engine to package must have the same Visual Studio version or you will get errors and the packaging process will fail. You can still run the editor but packaging will fail for some platforms because of this.