Wii U Homebrew Launcher Download

Mar 2, 2016 - Wii U Homebrew launcher released by Dimok (supports 5.4.0, 5.3.2, 5.1.0, 5.0.0). You can download Wii U Homebrew Launcher 1.1 here.

LATEST // EXPLOITABLE // RECOMMENDED FIRMWARE: 5.5.1

Your Wii U is in no danger if you decide to run an exploit. This is a very safe procedure, and a relatively simple one at that. Were not soldering anything, or preforming kind of hardware mods; all you need is an SD card, your computer (with the ability to write to an SD card), the internet (with a wireless router), and a Wii U.

If you have any other questions, check the F.A.Q. first before you ask in the Q&A thread! I will try my best to answer any questions.

Announcements

Plailect and I have made a new guide! Check it out: wiiu.guide
To better adhere to subreddit guidelines and policies regarding piracy, I have removed the Brazilian Title Install Method from the wiki. This has been replaced by a guide that outlines how to use disc2app, which is a great and easy tool to convert your physical Wii U games into digital titles.
The latest versions of Haxchi and Coldboot Haxchi both have built-in CFW functions. If you're not using redNAND, you should be using these functions instead of Mocha CFW.
If you have a question - please ask on the /r/WiiUHacks Q&A thread or the Nintendo Homebrew Discord. Issues/ tickets should only be made if you have a correction to be made in the guide.

0) Starter Pack Setup

If you plan on going through the whole guide, this should be your first stop. This section shows you how to setup your SD card correctly, what software to download, and where that software should go on the SD card. It is not required to start here, but I would recommend it. This part of the guide contains the following sections:

Guide Prep Work:Making Your Own Starter Pack

1) Blocking Updates From Nintendo

Before we get started exploiting the Wii U, we should set the console up to block updates from Nintendo. If your Wii U goes above the latest firmware (5.5.1), you may lose your ability to get to the homebrew launcher and all the other fun stuff. This part of the guide contains the following sections:

Dualhax
Blocking Updates with a Proxy Server
Router URL Blocking
Disable Automatic Software Downloads

2) Preparing & Running the Kernel Exploit

This is where the fun begins! In this section, we'll be setting up the SD card so we can run the kernel exploit. There are a couple way to go about doing this and we'll explore some of those options. This part of the guide contains the following sections:

Kernel Exploit Prep Work:Setting up Your SD Card
Running the Kernel Exploit:The Easy Way
Running the Kernel Exploit:The Self-Hosting Way
Running the Kernel Exploit:Self-Hosting and Taking Your Wii U Offline

3) Installing HaxchiFW & The Homebrew Launcher Channel

Optional: We'll be installing Haxchi to run homebrew off the system menu. But we won't be launching just any kind of homebrew - because we're going to boot into Haxchi's built in custom firmware that I like to call, HaxchiFW. This will then allow us to install the Homebrew Launcher Channel directly to our system menu, so we won't have to use a network to get into the Homebrew Launcher again. This part of the guide contains the following sections:

Obtaining a Compatible Haxchi Title
HaxchiFW & The Homebrew Launcher Channel

4) Installing redNAND with Mocha CFW

Optional: redNAND is NOT intended for the average user. redNAND is short for 'Redirected NAND'. Simply put, it's your system menu running on your SD card instead of internally in the Wii U - with all the same features as HaxchiFW. This means if you install something bad or screw up badly, it's okay! Your Wii U isn't a brick, you just screwed up the files on the SD card. This part of the guide contains the following sections:

redNAND & Mocha CFW
Installing Haxchi for Mocha CFW with redNAND
Installing Mocha CFW (without Haxchi/ redNAND)

5) Installing Coldboot Haxchi

Homebrew Launcher

Optional: If you have been following the guide up until now, we can now run IOSUhax from the system menu via Haxchi. What we're going to do now is run it when you start the Wii U from the get go. This means that when you turn your Wii U on, your system menu will be signature patched automatically.

Proceed with caution:This is an optional procedure. Right now Coldboothax is still very early in development. Because of this, there are numerous ways you can brick your Wii U before and after using this method. Please read through all the brick warnings in this section. I am not responsible for any bricked Wii Us.

This part of the guide contains the following sections:

Coldboothax: Installing Coldboot Haxchi
Coldboothax: Accessing the Coldboot Haxchi Menu
Coldboothax: Uninstalling Coldboot Haxchi
Restoring Haxchi

6) disc2app

disc2app is a tool that allows us to install our physical Wii U discs as digital titles onto our systems. By the end of this tutorial, you'll be playing your physical games off of a connected external harddrives or a system menu in no time! Fortunately it's a very easy and straight forward process, however theres a few things we need to do before we can play our newly converted digital titles.

This part of the guide contains the following sections:

Phase 1: Formatting the USB HDD
Phase 2: Setting up the SD Card & disc2app
Phase 3: Installing the Dumped Game

7) vWii Modding

vWii translates to Virtual Wii which is the Wii U's built in Wii. It is very moddable, and the methods we use today have changed a little bit! It's much more painless than what it used to be from a couple of years ago, and I've written this section to make it as easy as possible! This part of the guide contains the following sections:

Wuphax - Installing the Homebrew Channel
Dumping the vWii's NAND
IOS One-by-One Dumping (Optional)
cIOS Installation
Additional Information

8) The /r/WiiUHacks Wiki

Looking for guides on how to use things like Saviine or nnupatcher? Are you looking for a F.A.Q. page to troubleshoot problems you may be running into? Check out the /r/WiiUHacks Wiki! I, along with the community, will be updating the wiki with all sorts of things in the future.

The Homebrew Launcher is a WiiU homebrew that lists homebrew applications located on a SD card and permits launching them (similar to the Homebrew Channel of the Wii).

Usage

To use the Homebrew Launcher (or HBL, for short) you must copy homebrew_launcher.elf into SD:/wiiu/apps/homebrew_launcher/homebrew_launcher.elf, and run the installer throught your WiiU browser.

The apps that will be listed are should be in the following path /wiiu/apps/homebrew_name/some_elf_name.elf on the root of the SD card. A meta.xml and an icon.png (256x96) are optional. Here is an example:

sd:/
- wiiu/
  - apps/
  - homebrew_launcher/
    - homebrew_launcher.elf
    - meta.xml
    - icon.png
  - loadiine_gx2/
    - loadiine_gx2.elf
    - meta.xml
    - icon.png
  - ddd/
    - ddd.elf
    - meta.xml
    - icon.png
  - ftpiiu/
    - ftpiiu.elf
    - meta.xml
    - icon.png

Building the Homebrew Launcher

To build the main application devkitPPC is required as well as some additionally libraries. If not yet done export the path of devkitPPC and devkitPro to the evironment variables DEVKITPRO and DEVKITPPC.

Some can be found in the 'libs' folder of this repository. Extract the 'portlibs.zip' into your devkitPro directory. This package includes:

Homebrew Launcher Channel Wii U

zlib

In order to build this application you need serval libs:

dynamic_libs for access to the functions.
libutils for common functions.
libgui for the gui elements.

Install them (in this order) according to their README's. Don't forget the dependencies of the libs itself.

All remaining is to enter the main application path and enter 'make'. You should get a homebrew_launcher.elf and a homebrew__launcher_dbg.elf in the main path.

To compile the installer application enter the 'installer' path on the source code and type 'make'.

Building an application / homebrew (ELF) for the Homebrew Launcher