WoWClientRebuilder

WoWClientRebuilder regenerates a complete, runnable World of Warcraft client — the program binaries, the full Data/ MPQ set, and your chosen locale(s) — entirely from Blizzard's own still-live CDN. No Blizzard data is redistributed: the tool ships only code, downloads everything at runtime from official Blizzard CDN endpoints, verifies files by MD5, and discards the temporary patch archives after use. Output is byte-identical to a real install.

Supported clients: Cataclysm 4.3.4 (15595) and Mists of Pandaria 5.4.8 (18414) — the pre-CASC "pod-retail" builds Blizzard still serves.

Features

• Whole client or partial — regenerate the full client (binaries + Data/ + locales), data only, or locale only.
• Every program binary, byte-exact — including the auxiliary ones Blizzard removed from its /repair store (MovieProxy, BlizzardError, SystemSurvey, WowError, WowError-64, Battle.net-64, and the Utils\ in-game browser), recovered directly out of the already-downloaded MPQs — no redistribution.
• All MoP locales (15 at last check, read live from the manifest) via an interactive picker, or --locale enUS,deDE / all.
• CDN region selection (EU / NA) with automatic cross-region failover.
• Two ways to run — an interactive menu when launched with no arguments (double-click), or a scriptable flag interface.
• Verified end to end — the partial download manifest is first authenticated against the content-hash pinned in the recipe (so a tampered or MITM'd manifest fails closed and can't redirect or substitute downloads), every produced file is then MD5-verified, and the build scratch is cleaned up — leaving a clean client folder.
• Localhost safety guard — in full-client (client) mode the rebuilt client's realmlist defaults to 127.0.0.1 (see below).

Requirements

Requirement	Version / Notes
CMake	>= 3.21 (for CMakePresets.json)
Compiler	MSVC with C++17 — Visual Studio 2026 (the preset's generator); VS 2022 also works via a manual configure (see below)
vcpkg	bootstrapped, with VCPKG_ROOT set. Supplies the only external dependency, libcurl (declared in vcpkg.json, manifest mode). StormLib, miniz, and doctest are vendored in dep/.
Internet	vcpkg fetches curl on the first configure; the tool fetches from dist.blizzard.com.edgesuite.net and eu.media.battle.net.edgesuite.net at runtime

Directory layout

The project follows the same sibling-dir convention as the MaNGOS server core:

WoWClientRebuilder/          <- source (this repo)
WoWClientRebuilder_build/    <- cmake build tree  (created by configure step)
WoWClientRebuilder_install/  <- runnable install  (wowrebuild.exe + DLLs)

Build & Install

(a) VS2026 "Open Folder"

Open the WoWClientRebuilder folder in Visual Studio 2026. VS auto-detects CMakePresets.json and applies its bundled vcpkg toolchain. Select the windows-vcpkg / Release configuration and choose Build > Install WoWClientRebuilder to produce WoWClientRebuilder_install. (This is the path of least resistance — VS supplies vcpkg, so no VCPKG_ROOT is needed.)

(b) CLI with CMake presets

# From a shell with cmake.exe on PATH and VCPKG_ROOT set:
cmake --preset windows-vcpkg
cmake --build --preset windows-vcpkg
cmake --install ..\WoWClientRebuilder_build --config Release

(c) Build-install script

# From the repo root:
.\scripts\build-install.ps1

# Or with an explicit vcpkg toolchain path:
.\scripts\build-install.ps1 -VcpkgToolchain "C:\vcpkg\scripts\buildsystems\vcpkg.cmake"

The script configures → builds → installs in one step, printing the final install path on completion.

If VCPKG_ROOT is not set and you pass no -VcpkgToolchain, the script tries to auto-discover the vcpkg bundled with your local Visual Studio install (via vswhere); if it can't find one it exits with an error. Set VCPKG_ROOT or pass -VcpkgToolchain explicitly to be sure.

Troubleshooting: "CMake cannot find CURL"

libcurl comes from vcpkg, so this error means the configure step never received the vcpkg toolchain. It's almost always one (or more) of:

1. VCPKG_ROOT is not set. The preset wires the toolchain via $env{VCPKG_ROOT}/scripts/buildsystems/vcpkg.cmake; with the variable unset that path is broken. Set it and make sure vcpkg is bootstrapped:

   $env:VCPKG_ROOT = "C:\vcpkg"   # or your VS install's "...\VC\vcpkg"

2. A stale build dir. Once a configure fails, the bad toolchain path is pinned in CMakeCache.txt and re-running cmake reuses it — so delete the build dir and reconfigure (CMake will not switch toolchains in place):

   Remove-Item -Recurse -Force ..\WoWClientRebuilder_build

3. Not using VS 2026. The windows-vcpkg preset's generator is Visual Studio 18 2026; on a different VS, skip the preset and configure manually:

   cmake -S . -B ..\WoWClientRebuilder_build -G "Visual Studio 17 2022" -A x64 `
     -DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE="$env:VCPKG_ROOT\scripts\buildsystems\vcpkg.cmake"
   cmake --build ..\WoWClientRebuilder_build --config Release

The most common cause is VCPKG_ROOT unset combined with a leftover build dir from the first failed attempt — wipe the build dir after setting the variable.

Usage

Interactive (double-click, or no arguments)

Launched with no arguments, wowrebuild.exe drives a numbered console menu: mode → version → locale (skipped for data) → CDN region → output folder → resume-or-fresh-start (if a prior download exists) → pre-flight confirmation. This is what runs when you double-click the exe.

At each of the five setup questions you can enter B to step back to the previous question or X to exit (with a confirmation). Exiting stops cleanly before anything is downloaded.

Scripted (flags)

wowrebuild <mode> <version> [options] <outDir>
  mode:         client | data | locale
  version:      4.3.4 | 5.4.8
  --locale L    csv list (e.g. enUS,deDE) or 'all'   (default enUS)
  --region R    EU | NA                               (default EU)
  --no-cinematics skip the per-locale cinematic movies (included by default)
  --realmlist H host written into the WTF files       (default 127.0.0.1)
  --yes         skip the pre-flight confirmation prompt
  --tfil path   optional .tfil torrent for piece verification

Example — a full enUS 5.4.8 client, no prompts:

WoWClientRebuilder_install\wowrebuild.exe client 5.4.8 --locale enUS --yes C:\wow548\Rebuild

How the program binaries are sourced per version:

Version	Client	Binary source
4.3.4	Cataclysm (15595)	32-bit from the content-addressed /repair store; 64-bit from WoWLive-64-Win-15595.zip 1
5.4.8	Mists of Pandaria (18414)	Wow.exe/Wow-64.exe PTCH-applied from base-Win.MPQ + wow-0-18414-Win-final.MPQ; the aux binaries extracted from those MPQs

The Data/ layer and locales are downloaded from the build's partial manifest in both cases, and every produced file is MD5-verified.

Running tests

ctest --test-dir WoWClientRebuilder_build -C Release

The doctest suite (100+ cases across 21 tests/test_*.cpp files) runs fully offline. Two network/fixture-gated acceptance groups sit alongside it:

• acceptance (5.4.8): three fixture-gated cases driven from local MPQ fixtures in WoWClientRebuilder_build/fixtures/ — the Wow.exe/Wow-64.exe byte-exact pair (the named acceptance ctest target), the 9 recovered aux binaries (MpqExtract artifacts), and an MPQ-handle cleanup regression (the latter two run under the wcrtests omnibus target). All skip cleanly when the fixtures are absent, so CI / fresh checkouts stay green.
• acceptance_cata434 (4.3.4): an opt-in live test, registered only when you configure with -DWCR_LIVE_TESTS=ON. It downloads ~46 MB from Blizzard's CDN and verifies the binaries byte-exact. Registering it auto-sets WCR_LIVE=1 so it actually runs (instead of reporting a green "0 assertions"), so a default offline ctest never sees it.

# Register + run the live 4.3.4 acceptance:
cmake --preset windows-vcpkg -DWCR_LIVE_TESTS=ON
cmake --build --preset windows-vcpkg
ctest --test-dir WoWClientRebuilder_build -C Release -R acceptance_cata434

Localhost safety guard

When regenerating a full client (client mode), the tool generates a WTF/RunOnce.wtf and Data/<locale>/realmlist.wtf that set the client realmlist to 127.0.0.1 as a safety default. (data and locale modes produce no WTF files.)

1. Localhost-only default: The generated RunOnce.wtf sets the client realmlist to 127.0.0.1. The rebuilt client will only attempt to connect to a server running on your own machine unless you change this file.
2. No external server configured or recommended: This project does not include, recommend, or configure any public or private-server address. No third-party server credentials or URLs are distributed with this tool.
3. User responsibility: Users who modify the generated WTF configuration to point at an external server are solely responsible for their own use of the rebuilt client and must ensure compliance with any applicable terms of service.

License

WoWClientRebuilder's own source is released under the GNU General Public License v2 (see the header block in each source file). World of Warcraft and all related assets remain copyright Blizzard Entertainment, Inc.; this tool redistributes none of them.

Footnotes

1. The 4.3.4 set includes Launcher.exe to mirror a pristine retail folder byte-for-byte. It is the legacy Blizzard self-updater: never run it — it streams the client toward current retail and corrupts the pinned 4.3.4 install. The file is inert unless launched. ↩