I work for a college where we use Unreal Engine to teach game art. When ever there’s an update to Unreal, for example - from 4.27.0 to 4.27.1, it prevents us from being about to use it until we update it. Our I.T. department is extremely adamant about not doing any updates in the middle of a semester. You don’t understand the kind of animosity that causes between faculty and the I.T. department. It is a straight up Unreal Tournament trying to get them to do something for us. So I was wondering if there is a way to prevent the updates and continue using whatever current version we use?
Thanks.
PS. Sorry for the incorrect tag. I can’t seem to find one that fits this topic. Whenever I search for something, even if it’s in your list of tags, it says it can’t be found, so I just picked the first item in the list.
UE updates (even the hotfixes) are not mandatory, and you can continue to use whatever version you currently have installed even after a hotfix is released.
The button the in Launcher will change to ‘Update’, but you can still run what’s currently installed (I don’t recall the precise UI in the launcher during this scenario; but it’s either via the dropdown or the ‘Launch’ button the upper right). Regardless, you can entirely bypass the Launcher by just running the UE4Editor.exe or its desktop shortcut.
There’s also always the Github/source code route too.
The one note and nuance to this, is if you need to perform a fresh installation on a computer, the Launcher will always download and install the very latest hotfix. If you have a need to install a prior hotfix version, then you will need to go with Github/source code.
The problem is, as faculty we don’t have permissions to install anything. Any software installs and updates has to go through our I.T. department, and they are adamant about doing installs or updates on the beginning of each new semester, which is every sixteen weeks. So, if there’s an update, like from 4.20 to 4.21, in the middle of the semester, they won’t install that until the next semester. So that kills the idea of installing a new version to override the update.
In the Launcher, within the library, if there’s an update to Unreal, it won’t allow you to run it until you run the update. Honestly, I never took notice if the Launch button on the top right also requires the update be installed before use. A fellow faculty member concurs, they’ve never took notice of that either because we always use the launcher from the library. I will definitely have to pay attention to that the next time an update is released.
However, this also applies for the Unreal Launcher as well. If there is an update for the Launcher, there doesn’t seem to be a way, through the UI, to run it until it is updated. This is a problem since students rely on using items from the Marketplace such as the Infinity Blade packs. which, to my knowledge, cannot be accessed otherwise.
When Unreal gets installed, I’d recommend checking ‘Add Desktop Shortcut’ so you get a desktop icon right to the Unreal Editor. You can launch the editor directly this way without needing to go through the launcher every time.
And yes, the launcher does periodically receive mandatory updates (although most are optional minor updates that can be postponed). If you are blocked on processing those mandatory launcher updates, I’m sorry to say I can’t recommend a solution right now.
I am aware of running the editor straight from the executable. I have had to do that on more than a few occasions. I was hoping for a solution to the Launcher issue, but if you say there isn’t one then I guess it is what it is. Perhaps Epic can look into one for us? Maybe instead of making the update mandatory, let users choose to update instead?
I like the suggestion to use a desktop shortcut, rather than using the launcher.
In general, the launcher isn’t really needed – the engine is a regular EXE, that you can start normally.
Separately, if you REALLY need to control versions, you could consider building the engine from source, and building your own installer or disk image to run it.
Also, if the IT department does not want to apply security updates in the middle of the semester, they are not just incompetent, they are actually putting your university in danger. So, if you need an update and the update contains security items (almost every update does,) you should be able to make it happen for that reason.