[FRONTEND] Simplelauncher 4.6.0 31.10.2025

Simplelauncher 4.2.0 10.07.2025

Simplelauncher 4.1.0 08.06.2025

Simple Launcher GUI. Photo@project

Simplelauncher 4.0.1 26.05.2025

Simplelauncher 4.0.0 25.05.2025

This release brings significant user-interface improvements, new features for game browsing and management, enhanced stability, and various under-the-hood technical refinements.

Improvements

• New System Selection Screen: Displayed a more visual screen when no system is chosen to simplify platform selection.
• Revamped Navigation Panel: Added a panel on the left side of the main window with quick-access buttons for Restart, Global Search, Favorites, Play History, Edit System (Expert Mode), Toggle View Mode, Toggle Aspect Ratio, Zoom In, and Zoom Out.
• Switchable View Modes: Enabled toggling between Grid View (with game-cover images) and List View (showing game details in a table).
• Enhanced Zooming: Allowed zooming in and out of game thumbnails in Grid View via the new buttons or the Ctrl + mouse-wheel shortcut.
• Displayed Game File Sizes: Showed file sizes in List View.
• Overhauled UI Layout: Redesigned the main window and multiple dialogs (Easy Mode, Download Image Pack, Global Search, Favorites, Play History, Edit System).
• Refined Error Handling: Improved error messages and user prompts throughout the application.
• Updated Documentation Links: Improved Help User section and parameters guide links.
• Enhanced Gamepad Logic: Made controller navigation more reliable.
• Standardized Sound Effects: Switched to a consistent notification sound across the app.
• Updated Batch Convert To CHD: Added support for 7z and RAR files, enabled parallel processing, and improved multithreading.
• Added Batch Convert To RVZ: Introduced a tool to convert GameCube and Wii ISO files to RVZ format.
• Updated Emulators: Upgraded to the latest emulator versions.
• Updated MAME Data File: Bumped to version 0.277. mame.dat

Bug Fixes & Internal Changes (for developers/advanced users)

• Fixed various Gamepad Controller issues
• Corrected typos and added null checks
• Addressed default-logic errors in emulator error notifications
• Prevented potential XML vulnerabilities during file loading/saving
• Fixed context-menu parameter-handling bugs
• Refactored and reorganized code for better maintainability and performance
• Replaced Newtonsoft.Json with System.Text.Json for JSON processing
• Improved file-path handling: more robust relative-path resolution and folder-name sanitization
• Enhanced asynchronous operations for smoother UI responsiveness
• Implemented stricter code-quality checks
• Consolidated “Please Wait” dialog logic
• Removed redundant or unused code
• Improved the structure and reusability of context-menu creation logic
• Integrated IHttpClientFactory for HTTP client management

Simplelauncher 5.7.0 8/09/2026

RetroAchievements Compatibility Filter (Hash-Based)

• Hash-based filtering — The "RetroAchievements-compatible games" filter now matches games by real ROM hash instead of fuzzy name matching.
• Background hash scanning — Scans run off the UI thread with progress toasts, so the app never freezes while calculating hashes.
• Archive-aware hashing — ROM content is hashed directly from .zip archives (and per-game zips) without extraction, so zipped games match their RetroAchievements entries.
• Bundled hashing tool — Hashing is delegated to a bundled RetroAchievementsSharp CLI tool for accuracy and performance.
• Updated RetroAchievements database — Refreshed RetroAchievements.dat with new systems and games.

Update Flow

• Multi-source update fallback chain — Update checks now try the primary GitHub repository, then the transferred GitHub organization, then the secondary server (assets.purelogiccode.com), so updates keep working through the GitHub organization transfer.
• Updater fixes — Fixed an updater bug where waiting for the app to exit could throw InvalidOperationException and abort the update; the updater now disposes process handles safely.
• Download resilience — Raised the download timeout to 5 minutes so slow connections can complete large update packages.
• Toast notifications — Replaced tray balloon notifications with modern toast notifications.

Launch Fixes

• Missing emulator executable — Launching with an emulator whose executable no longer exists now shows an actionable dialog (with the configured path) instead of a generic error.
• Invalid executable format — Games pointing at invalid executables (Win32 error 193) now show a direct, localized dialog explaining the problem instead of an error-log prompt.
• Ymir — Archives are force-extracted before launching Ymir, since it does not support mounted archives.
• Elevation — The elevation message now instructs users to disable the "Run as administrator" requirement on the emulator, and the Avalonia app gained an equivalent elevation dialog.
• Parameter suggestions — System names are validated before calling the ParameterResolver API; API rejections and network failures are logged as info and handled gracefully.

Favorites & Play History

• Rename/remove sync — Favorites and play history now stay in sync when systems are renamed or removed, in both the WPF and Avalonia apps.
• Subfolder resolution — Favorites and play-history entries pointing to files stored in system-folder subfolders resolve correctly again.
• Protection against wiping favorites — Favorites are never wiped when the systems file fails to load (e.g., corrupt or transient system.xml failure).

Easy Mode

• Temp folder fix — Easy Mode downloads no longer fail when startup cleanup removes the temp folder; the folder is re-created on demand.

Other Fixes

• Unified log path resolution — WPF and Avalonia now resolve log files identically; opening the log from dialogs always opens the actual rolling log file.
• Storefront icon extraction — Fixed a DestroyIconW entry-point error that threw on every successful icon extraction (handle leak + false error reports).
• Microsoft Windows folders — Windows/Microsoft Games folders are created before store scans, with a warning for protected locations.
• Raine config window — Opening the Raine configuration window with a null emulator path no longer crashes; it prompts for the executable instead.
• Edit System stability — Fixed a crash from WPF-only cursor definitions and refreshed sidebar counts after the dialog closes.
• Debug window — No longer owned by the main window, so it stays usable independently.

Tooling

• Dependencies — NAudio 3, Markdown.Avalonia 12, Meziantou.Analyzer 3.0.224 and other library updates.

Simplelauncher 5.6.1 11/08/2026

Update Check Fallback (Secondary Server)

• Fallback when GitHub is unreachable — If the GitHub API cannot be reached (offline, rate-limited, blocked), the update check now falls back to the secondary server (assets.purelogiccode.com) using its version.txt file and hosted release packages.
• Full update support on fallback — The fallback path resolves both the release package and the updater package, so the update window and automatic update work exactly as when GitHub is reachable.
• Updater download fallback — If downloading the release from the primary source fails, the Updater retries from the secondary server automatically (progress bar resets between attempts).

Launch Fixes

• List-view right-click "Launch Game" — Right-clicking a game in the list view and choosing "Launch Game" now launches with the emulator selected in the UI (falling back to the system's first configured emulator). Previously this path always failed with "SelectedEmulatorName is null or empty".

Language Launch Argument

• --language startup argument — Launch SimpleLauncher with a specific language, e.g. SimpleLauncher.exe --language es. Supported codes load at startup; unsupported codes fall back to English without error.

Localization Fixes

• Spanish & Turkish resources — strings.es.xaml and strings.tr.xaml are now embedded as pack resources and load correctly (bugs 64899-64904).

Updater UI

• White log text and progress bar — The Updater window's log text and progress bar foreground are now white for a cleaner look.

Simplelauncher 5.6.0 9/08/2026

Parameter Resolver API

• "Suggest" buttons — Added to the Edit System window for every emulator parameter field.
• AI-powered suggestions — An AI-powered API suggests the best emulator parameters based on the system configuration.
• Confirmation before applying — Shows a dialog with the suggested parameter and an explanation before applying it.
• Explanation: prefix handling — If the AI response starts with "Explanation:", that text is treated as the explanation and is no longer inserted into the emulator parameter field.
• Loading overlay — Added a loading overlay to AI parameter resolution.
• URL normalization — The AI parameter resolver URL is normalized (trailing slash) and uses a fixed 60-second timeout.

Image Matching Improvements

• Annotation stripping — New EnableAnnotationStripping option strips region tags, revision numbers, and other annotations from filenames for better cover image matching.

Game File Watcher

• New GameFileWatcherService — Monitors ROM system folders for external file changes (create, delete, rename) and automatically refreshes the game list when changes are detected.
• Debouncing (500ms) — Avoids rapid re-scans during batch file operations like archive extraction.
• Automatic start/stop — Watching starts and stops automatically when switching between systems.

7za Fallback Extraction

• Automatic fallback to 7za — When SharpCompress fails to extract .7z files, the application now automatically retries using the bundled 7za.exe (or 7za_arm64.exe on ARM64).
• Bundled binaries — Added 7za binaries to tools/SevenZip/ and tools/BatchConvertIsoToXiso/, plus 7za.exe / 7za_arm64.exe to BatchConvertToRVZ and BatchConvertToCHD for fallback extraction/conversion.

Batch File Path Validation

• Pre-execution validation — Batch files are now validated before execution to detect referenced paths that do not exist.
• Warning dialog — Shows a dialog listing the missing paths with the option to continue or cancel.
• Direct execution — Batch files are now executed with UseShellExecute instead of cmd.exe /c for better compatibility.

OneDrive Error Handling

• Specific OneDrive guidance — When a game file fails to launch and its path contains "OneDrive", the error message now provides specific instructions about syncing and downloading the file.
• Localized message — Added the localized oneDriveIssue string across all supported languages.

Invalid Folder Character Validation

• Path character validation — System folder and image folder paths are now validated for invalid path characters before attempting directory creation.
• Clear error message — Shows a message listing the invalid characters found.

CHD Support

• Kega Fusion — Added CHD support for the Kega Fusion emulator.
• Exit code reporting — CHD mount failures now include the process exit code in error messages for easier debugging.
• Dokan check — Added a Dokan installation check before CHD mount operations.
• ARM64 support — CHD images are now mounted using the architecture-specific CHDMounter binary (CHDMounter.exe on x64, CHDMounter_arm64.exe on ARM64), enabling CHD mounting on Windows ARM64. The tool now ships with a README.

PCSX2 Improvements

• Permission error detection — PCSX2 configuration injection now detects file permission errors and shows a user-friendly notification instead of crashing.
• Portable mode — PCSX2 configuration injection now resolves the config file correctly when PCSX2 runs in portable mode.

History Database Format Migration

• MessagePack format — Migrated history.xml to history.dat (MessagePack binary format) for faster loading and smaller file size.
• Backward compatibility — Falls back to history.xml if history.dat is not found.

Global Search Enhancements

• Results count — Shows the number of matching results in the global search window.
• AND/OR operators — Supports boolean operators for more flexible search queries.
• Improved loading state — Better visual feedback during search operations.

Debug Logger Improvements

• Buffered logging — Debug log messages are now buffered for better performance.

Download Reliability

• Automatic retry — Downloads now automatically retry with exponential backoff on failure.
• Read-only file handling — Extraction now handles read-only files gracefully.

Startup Robustness

• Fallback logger — If Serilog initialization fails, the app now falls back to debug output instead of crashing at startup.
• Initialization order — The service provider is built only after the temp-folder check, and startup cleanup (trash + temp files) is more resilient.
• Timeout handling — Added timeouts for the silent update check and usage statistics calls so they can no longer hang indefinitely.

F8 Hotkey Warning

• Hotkey in use detection — When the F8 global hotkey cannot be registered because another program is already using it, Simple Launcher now shows a clear warning dialog and disables the screenshot functionality instead of failing silently. Localized in all supported languages.

RetroAchievements

• Improved system matcher — Updated the RetroAchievements system matcher for better game matching.

Credential Protection

• Encrypted RetroAchievements credentials — RA credentials are now encrypted using Windows Credential Manager.
• Nested settings structure — Emulator configuration now uses a nested settings structure for better organization.

UI/UX Improvements

• Cancel buttons — Added cancel buttons to the SetGamepadDeadZone, Debug, SetLinks, and EditSystem dialogs.
• Tooltips — Added tooltips for data grids, preview images, and viewer windows.
• Dead zone revert confirmation — Added a confirmation message box when reverting dead zone settings.
• Game list refresh — The game list now automatically refreshes when deleting a file that no longer exists on disk.
• Emergency overlay release — Added an emergency overlay release button to GlobalStatsWindow.

Debug Window Improvements

• Restored initialization — The Debug Window opens correctly again: its constructor (lost during the Serilog/DI refactor) was restored, and the window now applies the current app theme on open.
• Styling & closing behavior — Improved Debug Window styling, log text color, and closing/exception behavior.
• -debug command-line flag — Launching SimpleLauncher with the -debug argument now opens the Debug Window alongside the main window.
• parameters.md path fix — The parameters guide is now resolved relative to the application folder instead of the current working directory. Previously, launching the app from another working directory (shortcuts, scripts, IDE) made parameters.md appear "missing" and triggered a modal reinstall dialog that froze the app and the Debug Window.

Path Handling

• Quote trimming — Surrounding quotes are now automatically trimmed from paths.

Structured Logging

• Serilog — All logging now flows through Serilog (ILogger), and the custom ILogErrors abstraction was removed. The Debug Window receives log entries through a dedicated Serilog sink, a rolling daily file sink (7 days retained) is written to the local app data folder, and bug report sinks were added to all projects (including the tools and Updater).

Game List & UI

• Async system manager loading — System managers load asynchronously, preventing UI blocking at startup.
• Embedded images fix — Corrected pack URI paths for embedded images and icons.
• Minimize-to-tray handling — Improved minimize-to-tray behavior via proper window state change handling.

Dependency Injection Refactoring

• Massive DI migration — Replaced static service dependencies with dependency injection throughout the entire application.
• Constructor injection — All services, ViewModels, and windows now use constructor injection.
• MessageBoxLibrary.cs removed — Replaced with IMessageBoxLibraryService.
• DebugLogger replaced — Static DebugLogger was replaced with the IDebugLogger interface.
• ContextMenuFunctions replaced — Static ContextMenuFunctions was replaced with the IContextMenuFunctions interface.

MVVM Refactoring

• Refactored all configuration windows to the MVVM pattern.
• Refactored the RetroAchievements window to MVVM.
• Added ViewModels for multiple windows, including SupportWindow.
• Introduced the IWindowContext abstraction to decouple the game launcher from MainWindow.

Removed Tool

• GameCoverScraper removed — The Game Cover Scraper tool has been removed from the Tools menu, along with all its bundled binaries and resources. Use Find Rom Cover or Retro Game Cover Downloader instead.

Other Improvements

• Emulator documentation — Updated parameters.md (e.g., new CPCEC download link).
• Code quality — The codebase now compiles with nullable reference types enabled.

Simplelauncher 5.5.0 25/05/2026

New System Support

• Commander Genius — Added support for the Commander Keen engine recreation, including an intelligent launch strategy that:
  • Automatically parses the cgenius.cfg config to resolve the data/games directory.
  • Handles ${HOME} and ${BIN} variable expansion in config paths.
  • Extracts ZIP/7z/RAR archives and automatically locates Keen game data files (.CK1–.CK6).
  • Flattens nested folder structures and cleans up temp files after launch.
  • Includes dedicated system image and setup documentation.

Improved DOSBox Support

• Full DOSBox launch strategy with intelligent game file detection — automatically finds .conf, .bat, .exe, and .com files inside archives or folders.
• ISO and CHD support for DOSBox — Mounts ISO files to scan for executables, then generates a DOSBox config with native imgmount commands. CHD files are mounted via CHDMounter and launched via DOSBox cdrom mount.
• DOSBox file selection dialog — When multiple game files are found, presents a clean selection window with file names and relative paths.
• "Group Files by Folder" extended to DOSBox — Now works with DOSBox-based emulators (DOSBox, DOSBox-X, DOSBox Staging, dosbox-pure).
• -conf %ROM% auto-injection — Automatically inserts the -conf flag when launching via DOSBox if not already present.

UI/UX Improvements

• New minimize-to-tray function — Allow Simple Launcher to remain open in the tray.
• System context menu — Right-click on system buttons now shows Edit and Delete actions, passing the pre-selected system name.
• Markdown rendering enhancements — Improved Markdown styling with proper headings, code blocks, tables, lists, blockquotes, and horizontal rules in release notes and help content.

New Parameter Placeholder

• %NAME% — Resolves to the ROM filename without path or extension. Useful for emulators that expect just the game name (e.g., Commander Genius dir="games/%NAME%").

Improved Error Handling

• Batch file error reporting — Batch file failures now show a detailed error dialog with the option to open the error log. Batch file contents are also logged on failure for easier debugging.
• Batch file working directory validation — Validates that the working directory exists before executing batch files.
• Unicode normalization for file paths — Files created on macOS (NFD) can now be found on Windows (NFC) by trying multiple Unicode normalization forms, preventing "file not found" errors.
• Access denied handling for Updater — The updater now handles Win32 access denied errors gracefully with a user-friendly message and download page redirect.
• COMException rendering detection — Detects WPF render thread failures (UCEERR_RENDERTHREADFAILURE) caused by GPU driver issues or per-pixel transparency.

HTTP Resilience

• Replaced custom retry logic with Polly resilience handler — HTTP downloads now use Microsoft.Extensions.Http.Resilience with exponential backoff and jitter (5 retry attempts, 2-second base delay).

Single Instance Improvements

• Improved single-instance behavior — Launching a second instance now restores the existing window instead of showing an error message. Uses named events for cross-process signaling with a fallback to window enumeration.

Sound Service

• Replaced Windows MediaPlayer with NAudio 2.3.0 — Sound playback no longer requires UI thread dispatcher invocations, improving reliability and eliminating thread-affinity issues.
• Registered IPlaySoundEffects interface — Added proper DI registration for sound effects service.

MVVM Migration to CommunityToolkit.Mvvm

• Migrated all ViewModels from custom ViewModelBase and RelayCommand infrastructure to CommunityToolkit.Mvvm 8.4.2.
• Created dedicated ViewModels for AboutWindow (AboutViewModel), ImageViewer (ImageViewerViewModel), SetFuzzyMatching (SetFuzzyMatchingViewModel), DebugWindow, and GlobalStatsWindow.
• Added unit tests for DebugViewModel, GameVerificationViewModel, and GlobalStatsViewModel.

Service Extraction from MainWindow

• LoadingOverlayService — Extracted loading overlay management with operation counting (SetLoadingState, EmergencyRelease).
• StartupInitializationService — Consolidated startup logic (first-run wizard, MS Store scanning, game loading).
• GameListUIService — Extracted UI state management (grid/list mode, game button image cleanup, pagination).
• ThemeMenuService — Extracted theme switching logic (base themes + accent colors).
• LanguageMenuService — Extracted language switching with checkmark management.

Code Refactoring

• Injected ILogErrors via constructor/parameter — Replaced ServiceProvider resolution with proper constructor and parameter injection across favorites page, global search, context menu services, game button factory, and mount services.
• Standardized emulator detection checks — Unified null-conditional access pattern for emulator detection checks (Azahar, Citra, DuckStation, Geolith, MAME, Ootake, Raine, RetroArch, Sameboy, Xemu).

Dokan Driver Validation

• New DokanValidation class — Uses P/Invoke directly against dokan2.dll to check if Dokan is installed before any mount operation.
• Provides clear error messages when Dokan is missing for ZIP/CHD mounts.
• Dokan localization — Added localized strings for Dokan driver not found dialog with option to open download page.

Dependency Updates

• CommunityToolkit.Mvvm 8.4.2 (new)
• NAudio 2.3.0 (new, replaces Windows MediaPlayer)
• Microsoft.Extensions.Http.Resilience 10.6.0 (new, Polly resilience handler)
• MessagePack 3.1.4 → 3.1.6
• YamlDotNet 17.1.0 → 18.0.0
• SharpCompress → 0.48.1
• Tomlyn 2.3.2 → 2.4.0
• Microsoft.Data.Sqlite 10.0.7 → 10.0.8
• Microsoft.Extensions.* 10.0.7 → 10.0.8
• Microsoft.CodeAnalysis.NetAnalyzers 10.0.203 → 10.0.300

Simplelauncher 5.4.0 10/05/2026

New Parameter Placeholder

• Added %ROMSYSTEMFOLDER% placeholder that resolves to the specific system folder containing the ROM being launched.

RetroAchievements Integration

• Improve the hashing of GameCube and Wii games with better support for RVZ, WBFS, GCZ, CISO, and WIA file formats.
• Significantly expanded system name aliases for better matching (Nintendo N64, SEGA MEGA-CD, ARCADE - MAME, Nintendo - Game Boy Advance, and many more).

Dokan Installation Check

• Integrated DokanService into the Updater that detects missing Dokan library and offers to download and install it after updates (x64/ARM64 support).
• Enhanced CHD/ZIP mount error messages with specific Dokan exit code reasons (STATUS_DLL_NOT_FOUND, STATUS_ORDINAL_NOT_FOUND).

Enhanced Error Handling & Robustness

• New RetroArch special characters in path detection (shows a clear message about mkdir permission denied).
• MAME corrupted INI auto-restore from bundled sample when unknown option warnings are detected.
• MAME error detection expanded to catch mame64, WRONG LENGTH, and Required files are missing patterns.
• Protocol handler errors now show a localized message box instead of throwing an exception.
• Guard against directory disappearance races during file enumeration.

Code Refactoring

• Extracted RomHistoryLoader service from RomHistoryWindow for cleaner separation of concerns.

System Image Handling

• Fix a bug while loading System image preview in the Edit System Window.

Simple Launcher: List Of Games in Grid Mode

Simplelauncher 5.2.0 28.03.2026

With the latest update to Simple Launcher, you can now launch your games directly from CHD files for Xemu, Xenia, RPCS3, and Cxbx-Reload.

To mount CHD files as virtual drives, you must install the Dokan library on your system. Dokan is a user-mode filesystem driver for Windows that enables the virtual drive mounting functionality.

Download and install Dokan from: https://github.com/dokan-dev/dokany/releases

Simple Launcher will not mount CHD files without Dokan installed.

Major Features & Refactoring

• CHD Virtual Mounting: Refactored the launcher to use CHDMounter for Xemu, Xenia, RPCS3, and Cxbx-Reloaded. Instead of converting large .chd files to .iso (which was slow and consumed disk space), the app now mounts them as virtual drives and automatically locates the necessary boot files (e.g., EBOOT.BIN, default.xex,, default.xbe, image.iso).
• Atomic File Saving: Implemented atomic write operations for settings.xml and system.xml. The app now saves to a temporary file before replacing the original, significantly reducing the risk of configuration corruption during crashes or power loss.
• Enhanced ZIP Security: Added "Zip Slip" (path traversal) validation to all extraction and mounting services to prevent malicious archives from writing files outside of intended directories.
• PBP Support for Mednafen: Added a new strategy to convert .pbp files to .cue/.bin on the fly specifically for the Mednafen emulator.

UI & UX Enhancements

• Global Tooltip System: Added descriptive tooltips to almost every UI element across the application, including the Main Window, Edit System, and Settings windows.
• Centralized Styling: Refactored XAML resources to centralize styles and brushes in App.xaml, ensuring a more consistent look and feel across all windows.
• Improved Loading States: Replaced direct flag manipulation with atomic lifecycle methods for UI updates, preventing race conditions during system scans and game loading.

Emulator Compatibility & Logic

• RetroAchievements Filtering: The RetroAchievements icon and context menu items are now intelligently restricted to supported systems. Systems like PS3, Xbox 360, and Switch are now filtered out of the hashing logic.
• RetroArch Validation: Added early validation for RetroArch parameters. The app now warns users if the -L core parameter is missing before attempting to launch.
• MAME Error Handling: Improved detection for MAME-specific errors (ROM set mismatches, unknown systems, or missing images) with user-friendly dialogs and links to compatibility guides.
• Xenia Configuration: Extended the Xenia config handler to support both portable and standard DocumentsXenia locations.

Game Scanning & Metadata

• Microsoft Store Improvements:
  • Significantly expanded the app exclusion filter to hide system utilities and non-game apps.
  • Added EFS encryption fallback for copying game logos.
  • Improved icon extraction logic to prioritize high-resolution assets.
• Recursive Search Control: Added a "Disable Recursive Search" option to system configurations, allowing users to limit scans to top-level directories.
• Robust Image Downloading: Added retry logic and a 15-second timeout to the game image API service to handle intermittent network issues.

Maintenance & Build

• Dependency Updates: Updated SharpCompress to v0.47.3 and Tomlyn to v1.0.0.
• Library Migration: Replaced SharpZipLib and SevenZipSharp with SharpCompress to simplify the codebase and remove the dependency on external 7z DLLs.
• Long Path Support: Improved path handling across the service layer using the ? prefix to support file paths exceeding 260 characters.

Simplelauncher 5.1.0 15.02.2026

Simplelauncher 5.0.0 11.02.2026

Simplelauncher 4.9.0 13.01.2026

Simplelauncher 4.8.0 04.01.2026

Simplelauncher 4.7.0 08.12.2025

New Features

• Group Files by Folder: Groups multi-file MAME games (e.g., Software List CHDs/ROMs from PleasureDome) into single UI entries. Compatible only with MAME—warnings shown for non-MAME setups. Handy to launch MAME Software List CHDs.
• RetroGameCoverDownloader: New tool to help users get cover art for their games.
• Automatic Creation of 'Microsoft Windows' System: Introduced an algorithm to automatically add links to Epic Games, Steam Games, and Windows Store Games to the frontend.
• Advanced Global Search: Filter by system, filename, MAME description, folder name, and recursive search.
• First-Run Welcome Flow: Guides new users to Easy Mode for quick setup.
• Kebab Menu: "..." button on game entries for quick context actions.
• Configurable Status Bar: Timeout (default 3s) with detailed feedback for loading/saving/actions.

Core Refactoring

• Dependency Injection (DI): GameLauncher, GamePadController, UpdateChecker, ExtractionService, PlaySoundEffects, etc., now instance-based services.
• ExtractionService: Refactored from ExtractCompressedFile with IExtractionService interface; retry logic for file locks.
• Thread Safety: SemaphoreSlim for game caches; Dispatcher.InvokeAsync preferred.
• .NET 10: Target framework upgraded; C# 14 features.

UI/UX Improvements

• UpdateHistoryWindow: Native Markdown rendering (no external deps).
• EditSystemWindow: GroupBox → Expander (collapsible); persist states.
• Resizable Windows: SetFuzzyMatchingWindow, SetGamepadDeadZoneWindow.
• Dark Mode Toggle: Navigation menu icon/handler.
• Loading Overlays: Consistent across windows; disable UI during ops.

Tools & Emulators

• Updated Binaries: tools (bchunk.exe, GameCoverScraper, FindRomCover.exe, BatchConvertIsoToXiso.exe etc.).
• New Emulators: Ymir (Saturn), NooDs (DS), Gearlynx/Gearboy (Lynx).
• Docs: Updated parameters.md/helpuser.xml with Amiga models, MAME rompath examples.

Robustness & Perf

• Cancellation Tokens: GlobalSearchWindow, PlayHistoryWindow.
• Atomic Saves: Favorites prevent corruption via temp files.
• Cache Invalidation: Clear RA cache on credential changes.
• Localization: 100+ new strings (artwork, Easy Mode, errors).