EGS-LL

Experienced Game Store Launcher Launcher — quality-of-life wrapper for game launchers on Windows

📋 Table of Contents

Overview
Features
Installation
Usage
How It Works
Project Structure
CI/CD
Legal
Contributing
Roadmap
Support
Licence

🔍 Overview

A quality-of-life wrapper for game launchers on Windows (e.g. Epic Games Store).

EGS-LL does not reverse-engineer, modify, or patch the launchers in any way. It exclusively uses publicly available Windows APIs (registry keys, filesystem operations, process monitoring) to automate tedious manual workarounds that users already perform.

The Problem

When you move, back up, or restore a game folder that was installed through the Epic Games Store, the launcher refuses to recognise the existing files. Instead it shows "Destination folder is not empty" and insists on a full re-download — even though a perfectly valid .egstore backup folder with manifests is sitting right there.

Users have worked around this for years with a tedious manual dance:

Rename the existing game folder (e.g. RedDeadRedemption2 → RedDeadRedemption22)
Click Install in the launcher (pointing at the same parent directory)
Wait for the download to start (optionally let it reach ~3 % for stability)
Pause the download
Delete the newly created (mostly-empty) folder
Rename the backup folder back to the original name
Resume — the launcher detects the .egstore data and verifies instead of re-downloading

EGS-LL automates this entire process.

✨ Features

EGS-LL ships with two interfaces: a PowerShell CLI for scripting and a WinForms GUI for point-and-click operation. Both automate the same underlying recovery workflow.

Feature	CLI	GUI	Status
Recover Install — automate the folder-swap verification trick	✅	✅	Implemented
List Games — show all EGS-managed games with install state	✅	✅	Implemented
Show Info — display EGS paths, config, and registry data	✅	✅	Implemented
Drive Scanning — find unregistered EGS games across all drives	—	✅	Implemented
Automated Pause/Resume — three-tier cascade: UI Automation → process suspension → user prompt	—	—	Not implemented
Real-time Progress — coloured log and progress bar during recovery	—	✅	Implemented
Backup & Restore — automatic backup with rollback on failure/cancel	✅	✅	Implemented

📥 Installation

Prerequisites

Windows 10/11
Epic Games Store launcher installed

CLI only:

PowerShell 5.1+ (ships with Windows)

GUI only:

.NET Framework 4.8 (pre-installed on Windows 10 1903+ and Windows 11)

Option A: GUI (recommended)

Download EGS-LL.exe from the latest release and run it. No installation required — it's a single portable executable.

The GUI requests administrator elevation on launch. This is needed for registry access and process suspension. See Trust & Verification below for details on what elevated access is used for and how to verify the binary.

Option B: CLI

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/XAOSTECH/EGS-LL.git
cd EGS-LL

PowerShell may block unsigned scripts by default. To allow EGS-LL to run:

# Allow local scripts to run (one-time setup)
Set-ExecutionPolicy -ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned -Scope CurrentUser

# Or allow for the current session only
Set-ExecutionPolicy -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Scope Process

🚀 Usage

GUI

Launch EGS-LL.exe. The main window shows all detected EGS games with their install state.

Action	How
Refresh	Click Refresh to reload games from EGS manifests
Scan Drives	Click Scan Drives to find unregistered game folders (`.egstore`) across all fixed drives
Recover	Select a game → click Recover Selected (or right-click → Recover)
EGS Info	Click EGS Info to view launcher paths and registry configuration

The Source column shows where each game was detected: EGS (from manifests) or Scan (discovered on disk).

During recovery, a modal dialogue shows real-time progress with a coloured log. The GUI handles the entire folder-swap flow automatically — including pausing/resuming the EGS download process.

CLI

# List detected games
.\egs-ll.ps1 list

# Show EGS configuration and paths
.\egs-ll.ps1 info

# Recover an existing game folder
.\egs-ll.ps1 recover "Fortnite"

# Recover with a custom game folder path
.\egs-ll.ps1 recover "Fortnite" -GameDir "D:\Games\Fortnite"

# Emergency restore a backup folder
.\egs-ll.ps1 restore "D:\Games\MyGame"

# Skip confirmation prompts
.\egs-ll.ps1 recover "Fortnite" -Yes

Examples

📘 Example 1: Recover a game via CLI

.\egs-ll.ps1 recover "Red Dead Redemption 2"

The tool will:

Locate the game via EGS manifests
Validate the .egstore directory exists
Rename the folder out of the way
Guide you through starting/pausing the install in EGS
Swap the folders back
EGS verifies existing files instead of re-downloading

📗 Example 2: Recover with a custom path

.\egs-ll.ps1 recover "Fortnite" -GameDir "E:\Games\Fortnite"

Use -GameDir when the game folder exists but has no EGS manifest (e.g. copied from another machine).

📙 Example 3: Discover and recover an unregistered game via GUI

Launch EGS-LL.exe
Click Scan Drives — the scanner checks common game directories then performs a shallow scan of all fixed drives
A game found on disk but missing from EGS manifests shows as Unregistered with source Scan
Select it → click Recover Selected
The recovery dialogue automates the entire flow including EGS process suspension

�️ Trust & Verification

Why the binary is unsigned

EGS-LL is an open-source project distributed as a portable .exe. The binary is currently unsigned, which means:

Windows SmartScreen will show a "Windows protected your PC" warning the first time you run it
The UAC prompt will show "Unknown publisher" instead of a verified name

This is normal for open-source software distributed outside of package managers. Signed code-signing certificates cost hundreds of pounds per year — we are evaluating free OSS signing via SignPath.io.

How to verify the download

Every release includes a SHA256SUMS.txt file. To verify the binary matches what CI built:

# Download both EGS-LL.exe and SHA256SUMS.txt from the release
# Then verify the hash:
$expected = (Get-Content SHA256SUMS.txt).Split(' ')[0]
$actual   = (Get-FileHash EGS-LL.exe -Algorithm SHA256).Hash
if ($expected -eq $actual) { Write-Host "✓ Hash matches" -ForegroundColor Green }
else { Write-Host "✗ Hash mismatch — do not run this file" -ForegroundColor Red }

You can also compare the hash against the CI build log: open the build-gui workflow run for the release tag and check the "Collect artifacts" step output.

What elevation is used for

The GUI requests administrator privileges (requireAdministrator in the app manifest). Here is exactly what elevated access enables:

Action	Why Elevated	What It Does
Registry read	`HKLM` keys require admin on some configurations	Reads EGS install paths and launcher location (read-only, never writes)
Process suspension	`OpenProcess` with `PROCESS_SUSPEND_RESUME`	Tier 2 fallback: freezes the EGS process to pause downloads via `NtSuspendProcess`
Filesystem operations	Game folders in `Program Files` may be ACL-restricted	Renames/moves game folders during recovery

The primary pause mechanism (Tier 1) uses Windows UI Automation to click the Pause button in EGS — this does not require elevation. Process suspension is only attempted as a fallback.

EGS-LL never:

Writes to the Windows registry
Modifies EGS launcher files
Sends any data over the network
Accesses files outside of game directories and EGS manifest paths

Building from source

If you prefer not to run a pre-built binary, you can build from source with a single command:

dotnet build gui/EGS-LL.csproj -c Release

The output is at gui/bin/Release/net48/EGS-LL.exe. Requires the .NET SDK 8.x.

�🔧 How It Works

Registry & Manifest Reading

EGS-LL reads:

HKLM\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Epic Games\EpicGamesLauncher — launcher install paths
HKLM\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Epic Games\UnrealEngineLauncher — data path overrides
%ProgramData%\Epic\EpicGamesLauncher\Data\Manifests\*.item — game manifest files (JSON)
Per-game .egstore\ directories — chunk/staging manifests

Install Recovery Flow

The GUI automates the full flow end-to-end. The CLI guides the user through pause/resume steps manually.

┌──────────────────────────────────────────┐
│  User selects game to recover            │
└──────────────┬───────────────────────────┘
               │
     ┌─────────▼──────────┐
     │ Read EGS manifests │
     │ Locate game folder │
     └─────────┬──────────┘
               │
     ┌─────────▼──────────────────┐
     │ Validate .egstore exists   │
     │ (proves prior EGS install) │
     └─────────┬──────────────────┘
               │
     ┌─────────▼──────────────────────┐
     │ Rename folder: Game → Game_bak │
     └─────────┬──────────────────────┘
               │
     ┌─────────▼──────────────────────────┐
     │ Launch EGS install via URI scheme  │
     │ com.epicgames.launcher://install/  │
     └─────────┬──────────────────────────┘
               │
     ┌─────────▼──────────────────────────┐
     │ Monitor for new folder creation    │
     │ (FileSystemWatcher + polling)      │
     └─────────┬──────────────────────────┘
               │
     ┌─────────▼──────────────────────────┐
     │ Pause download (three-tier)        │
     │  1. UI Automation (click Pause)    │
     │  2. NtSuspendProcess (fallback)    │
     │  3. User prompt (manual pause)     │
     └─────────┬──────────────────────────┘
               │
     ┌─────────▼──────────────────────────┐
     │ Delete new folder                  │
     │ Rename Game_bak → Game             │
     └─────────┬──────────────────────────┘
               │
     ┌─────────▼──────────────────────────┐
     │ Resume download (UIA or process)   │
     └─────────┬──────────────────────────┘
               │
     ┌─────────▼──────────────────────────┐
     │ EGS verifies existing files        │
     │ instead of re-downloading          │
     └──────────────────────────────────┘

Drive Scanner (GUI)

The GUI includes a drive scanner that finds EGS games not registered in the launcher manifests:

Phase 1 (fast): Checks common game directories (Epic Games, Games, Program Files, etc.) on all fixed drives
Phase 2 (thorough): Shallow recursive scan (depth 2) of drive roots, skipping system directories
Results are merged with manifest data — games found only on disk show as Unregistered with source Scan

📁 Project Structure

EGS-LL/
├── egs-ll.ps1              # CLI entry point
├── lib/
│   ├── registry.ps1        # EGS registry key reader
│   ├── manifest.ps1        # .item / .egstore manifest parser
│   ├── recovery.ps1        # Install recovery automation
│   └── utils.ps1           # Shared helpers (logging, validation)
├── gui/
│   ├── EGS-LL.csproj       # .NET Framework 4.8 WinForms project
│   ├── Program.cs           # Entry point (admin elevation check)
│   ├── app.manifest         # UAC admin elevation manifest
│   ├── Core/
│   │   ├── RegistryHelper.cs      # Read-only EGS registry detection
│   │   ├── ManifestReader.cs      # Parse EGS .item manifest files
│   │   ├── ProcessHelper.cs       # Launch/detect/suspend/resume EGS
│   │   ├── RecoveryEngine.cs      # Full recovery workflow orchestration
│   │   ├── DriveScanner.cs        # Scan all drives for unregistered games
│   │   └── UIAutomationHelper.cs  # UIA-based EGS button interaction
│   └── Forms/
│       ├── MainForm.cs         # Main game library grid (dark theme)
│       └── RecoveryForm.cs     # Modal recovery progress dialogue
├── .github/workflows/
│   ├── build-gui.yml        # Reusable build workflow (callable)
│   └── release.yml          # Release automation (dev-control template)
├── docs/
│   ├── README.md
│   ├── CONTRIBUTING.md
│   ├── CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md
│   └── SECURITY.md
└── LICENSE

🔄 CI/CD

The project uses GitHub Actions for automated builds and releases.

Workflow	Purpose
build-gui.yml	Builds the GUI on `windows-latest`. Reusable via `workflow_call` — the release workflow auto-discovers and triggers it. Also supports `workflow_dispatch` for standalone testing.
release.yml	Full release automation (changelog, GPG-signed tag, GitHub release with artifacts and checksums). Powered by the dev-control template.

Building from Source

The GUI requires the .NET SDK (8.x) to build. The CI handles this automatically — you don't need the SDK installed locally.

# If you do have the SDK:
dotnet build gui/EGS-LL.csproj -c Release

The release workflow passes the version tag to the build, embedding it in the executable. Manual/test builds default to "experimental".

⚖️ Legal

This project is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or associated with Epic Games, Inc.

EGS-LL operates exclusively as an external wrapper. It:

Does not modify, patch, or inject into the Epic Games Store launcher binary
Does not reverse-engineer any proprietary protocols or obfuscation
Does not bypass any DRM, authentication, or licence checks
Only reads publicly accessible registry keys and user-owned files on disk
Only automates filesystem operations (rename/move) that users already perform manually
Only interacts with the launcher through its public URI scheme and standard Windows process APIs

Use of this tool is at your own risk and subject to the Epic Games Store EULA. Review their terms before use.

🤝 Contributing

Contributions welcome! Please read our Contributing Guidelines before submitting PRs.

Please keep the wrapper-only philosophy in mind:

No launcher binary modification
No network interception or MITM
No memory injection or hooking
Registry reads only (no writes to EGS-owned keys)
Filesystem operations on user-owned game directories only

See also: Code of Conduct | Security Policy

🗺️ Roadmap

See the open issues for a full list of proposed features and known issues.

💬 Support

💻 Issues: GitHub Issues
💬 Discussions: GitHub Discussions

📄 Licence

Distributed under the GPL-3.0 Licence. See LICENCE for more information.

Git Tree Visualisation

Full SVG · Interactive version · View data

Name		Name	Last commit message	Last commit date
Latest commit History 36 Commits
.github		.github
docs		docs
gui		gui
lib		lib
.gitignore		.gitignore
CHANGELOG.md		CHANGELOG.md
LICENSE		LICENSE
egs-ll.ps1		egs-ll.ps1

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EGS-LL

📋 Table of Contents

🔍 Overview

The Problem

✨ Features

📥 Installation

Prerequisites

Option A: GUI (recommended)

Option B: CLI

🚀 Usage

GUI

CLI

Examples

�️ Trust & Verification

Why the binary is unsigned

How to verify the download

What elevation is used for

Building from source

�🔧 How It Works

Registry & Manifest Reading

Install Recovery Flow

Drive Scanner (GUI)

📁 Project Structure

🔄 CI/CD

Building from Source

⚖️ Legal

🤝 Contributing

🗺️ Roadmap

💬 Support

📄 Licence

Git Tree Visualisation

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