hey guys,
I’m trying to create a plugin with Unreal Engine. What I did was create a new project, select the C++ template, and clicked create. The problem is when Unreal Engine opens, it gives me a command prompt window, but no Visual Studio. I have Visual Studio installed , and when I installed it, I selected the Game Development with C++ option along with the Unreal Engine installer and cocos. Everything is set up correctly I think, but for some reason, it doesn’t automatically open Visual Studio like I’ve seen in youtube videos . I even checked my project folder and the .sln file is there, but it doesn’t open by itself when I open the project, it only opens on visual studio when I double clikc the sln file which is not the behavior I saw in tutorials as I mentioned. Does anyone know how to fix this?
Here is the CLI I get when I open the new C++ UE project template, but no Visual Studio Edito is opening alongside it
In the YouTube video you linked, we don’t actually see VS launching as the project gets created, it’s just a cut. The VS would launch however when you create a new C++ class inside the editor from the Tools menu.
Now when you wanna open your existing C++ project, the standard is to build it from VS, which you can do by first opening the .sln file from File Explorer, VS, or any third party software where you can open the .sln file such as P4V. But you don’t wanna launch the editor from Epic Store or File Explorer by opening the .uproject file. If you do everything will probably be fine but it’s just an inconvenience in the development process plus it can cause issues (while not being irreversible in most cases), so I say make it a habit.
After opening the .sln file, to build the project, simply hit Ctrl + F5 inside VS, or hit F5 to build and start the debugger.
Thanks for your help. Btw, I tried creating a class from within the editor , And got the "Loading Visual Studio " Icon but it never opens. It stays like in the image below.
Might be due to your setup. The officially recommended minimum RAM capacity for UE 5 is 32GB. You can still work with 16GB for smaller scale projects, but even in that case adding VS onto it isn’t really ideal. Btw I did use UE 5 with VS when I had 16GB of RAM, there’re no issues with that, just came up with possible explanations for your current issue. Maybe you’re good on that aspect even, and it’s just a random thing.
Anyways, try closing the editor and building it from VS the way I explained.
Thanks for the tips. Just a quick update of the situation that I finally solved : The real issue was that Unreal was detecting Visual Studio Build Tools 2022 instead of the full Visual Studio Community Edition. Build Tools doesn’t have the editor, so Unreal was just opening a command prompt.
After I uninstalled Build Tools, everything started working properly and Visual Studio opens automatically now.
