Sonic4LaunchStub

Stub launcher for Sonic 4 on PC

This executable replaces your SonicLauncher.exe with a stub to launch the extracted jar file for the Sonic the Hedgehog 4 - Episode 1 launcher.

Background Info

The Sonic 4 EP1 Launcher is a Java app wrapped into an exe with Launch4j. Unfortunately, it targets Java 6 and nothing else. Thus, we are unable to launch and configure the settings and controls. This stub aims to replace the Launch4j wrapper so as to restore Steam status intergration and allow usage of a modern version of Java.

Prerequisites

• Sonic 4 Episode 1 (PC)
• 7-Zip
• A Java runtime of some sorts. Make sure that it has been added to PATH.
  • AdoptOpenJDK is recommended.
• Stub launcher downloaded from the releases page

Instructions

A. Repackaging the launcher

1. Navigate to the install folder: [Steam Library Root]\steamapps\common\Sonic the Hedgehog 4 EP 1
2. Select SonicLauncher.exe and right-click. 7-Zip > Open archive
3. Select everything in 7-Zip and drag them to an empty folder.
4. Navigate to the folder you dragged the files to and select them all
5. Right-click. 7-Zip > Add to "[name].zip"
6. Rename zip file to SonicLauncher.jar
7. Move jar file to install folder
8. Delete the folders created in step 3.

B. 'Replacing' the Steam Launcher

1. Navigate to the install folder: [Steam Library Root]\steamapps\common\Sonic the Hedgehog 4 EP 1
2. Rename SonicLauncher.exe to SonicLauncher.exe.bak
3. Drag the stub launcher into the folder.
   • Ensure the stub launcher is still named SonicLauncher.exe

You're done! now go and play the game that you (hopefully) paid for.

SmartScreen blocked this program from running

Right-click the stub launcher and click on properties. At the bottom of the window there should be a checkbox to unblock it. Hit Apply and OK.

Self-building

If you're self-building this stub you have trust issues, but I'll still document this for you. <3

1. Make sure you have MinGW installed.
   • I used MinGW-W64-builds-4.3.5, specifically gcc-x86_64-8.1.0-posix-seh.
2. Add the MinGW bin folder to PATH
3. Clone the repository, navigate to it and execute gcc main.c -Wl,-subsystem,windows -o main
4. Follow install instructions

"Issues"

• Stub launcher does not run silently, thus creating a console window
  • Fixed in release v1.0
• This isn't a native rewrite and/or replacement for the launcher

Licensing

Check in LICENSE.md