diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index 9b9b5868f..47c63a4de 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -97,10 +97,12 @@ The COMMAND is the shell command ES will execute to start your emulator. As it i
 
 The following "tags" are replaced by ES in COMMANDs:
 
-`%ROM%`		- Replaced with absolute path to the selected ROM.
+`%ROM%`		- Replaced with absolute path to the selected ROM, with most Bash special characters escaped with a backslash.
 
 `%BASENAME%`	- Replaced with the "base" name of the path to the selected ROM. For example, a path of "/foo/bar.rom", this tag would be "bar". This tag is useful for setting up AdvanceMAME.
 
+`%ROM_RAW%`	- Replaced with the unescaped absolute path to the selected ROM.  If your emulator is picky about paths, you might want to use this instead of %ROM%, but enclosed in quotes.
+
 gamelist.xml
 ============
 
diff --git a/src/AudioManager.cpp b/src/AudioManager.cpp
index 081670e6c..c76e256b5 100644
--- a/src/AudioManager.cpp
+++ b/src/AudioManager.cpp
@@ -22,7 +22,7 @@ void AudioManager::mixAudio(void *unused, Uint8 *stream, int len)
 		{
 			//calculate rest length of current sample
 			Uint32 restLength = (sound->getLength() - sound->getPosition());
-			if (restLength > len) {
+			if (restLength > (Uint32)len) {
 				//if stream length is smaller than smaple lenght, clip it
 				restLength = len;
 			}
diff --git a/src/FolderData.cpp b/src/FolderData.cpp
index 8d0d43596..2bc937cca 100644
--- a/src/FolderData.cpp
+++ b/src/FolderData.cpp
@@ -37,7 +37,9 @@ bool filesort(FileData* file1, FileData* file2)
 	std::string name1 = file1->getName();
 	std::string name2 = file2->getName();
 
-	for(unsigned int i = 0; i < name1.length(); i++)
+	//min of name1/name2 .length()s
+	unsigned int count = name1.length() > name2.length() ? name2.length() : name1.length();
+	for(unsigned int i = 0; i < count; i++)
 	{
 		if(toupper(name1[i]) != toupper(name2[i]))
 		{
diff --git a/src/GameData.cpp b/src/GameData.cpp
index b6d981fbd..bb656be01 100644
--- a/src/GameData.cpp
+++ b/src/GameData.cpp
@@ -22,6 +22,7 @@ std::string GameData::getBashPath()
 {
 	//a quick and dirty way to insert a backslash before most characters that would mess up a bash path
 	std::string path = mPath;
+
 	const char* invalidChars = " '\"\\!$^&*(){}[]?;<>";
 	for(unsigned int i = 0; i < path.length(); i++)
 	{
diff --git a/src/InputManager.cpp b/src/InputManager.cpp
index 4f8f15394..5df74a951 100644
--- a/src/InputManager.cpp
+++ b/src/InputManager.cpp
@@ -72,7 +72,7 @@ std::vector<InputDevice> InputManager::getInputDevices() const
 		if (GetRawInputDeviceList(deviceList, &nrOfDevices, sizeof(RAWINPUTDEVICELIST)) != -1)
 		{
 			//loop through input devices
-			for (int i = 0; i < nrOfDevices; i++)
+			for (unsigned int i = 0; i < nrOfDevices; i++)
 			{
 				//get device name
 				char * rawName = new char[2048];
diff --git a/src/SystemData.cpp b/src/SystemData.cpp
index 9eb4e0866..e673041db 100644
--- a/src/SystemData.cpp
+++ b/src/SystemData.cpp
@@ -77,6 +77,7 @@ void SystemData::launchGame(Window* window, GameData* game)
 
 	command = strreplace(command, "%ROM%", game->getBashPath());
 	command = strreplace(command, "%BASENAME%", game->getBaseName());
+	command = strreplace(command, "%ROM_RAW%", game->getPath());
 
 	LOG(LogInfo) << "	" << command;
 	std::cout << "==============================================\n";
@@ -120,7 +121,37 @@ void SystemData::populateFolder(FolderData* folder)
 		if(filePath.stem().string().empty())
 			continue;
 
-		if(fs::is_directory(filePath))
+		//this is a little complicated because we allow a list of extensions to be defined (delimited with a space)
+		//we first get the extension of the file itself:
+		std::string extension = filePath.extension().string();
+		std::string chkExt;
+		size_t extPos = 0;
+
+		//folders *can* also match the extension and be added as games - this is mostly just to support higan
+		//see issue #75: https://github.com/Aloshi/EmulationStation/issues/75
+		bool isGame = false;
+		do {
+			//now we loop through every extension in the list
+			size_t cpos = extPos;
+			extPos = mSearchExtension.find(" ", extPos);
+			chkExt = mSearchExtension.substr(cpos, ((extPos == std::string::npos) ? mSearchExtension.length() - cpos: extPos - cpos));
+
+			//if it matches, add it
+			if(chkExt == extension)
+			{
+				GameData* newGame = new GameData(this, filePath.string(), filePath.stem().string());
+				folder->pushFileData(newGame);
+				isGame = true;
+				break;
+			}else if(extPos != std::string::npos) //if not, add one to the "next position" marker to skip the space when reading the next extension
+			{
+				extPos++;
+			}
+
+		} while(extPos != std::string::npos && chkExt != "" && chkExt.find(".") != std::string::npos);
+	
+		//add directories that also do not match an extension as folders
+		if(!isGame && fs::is_directory(filePath))
 		{
 			FolderData* newFolder = new FolderData(this, filePath.string(), filePath.stem().string());
 			populateFolder(newFolder);
@@ -130,31 +161,6 @@ void SystemData::populateFolder(FolderData* folder)
 				delete newFolder;
 			else
 				folder->pushFileData(newFolder);
-		}else{
-			//this is a little complicated because we allow a list of extensions to be defined (delimited with a space)
-			//we first get the extension of the file itself:
-			std::string extension = filePath.extension().string();
-			std::string chkExt;
-			size_t extPos = 0;
-
-			do {
-				//now we loop through every extension in the list
-				size_t cpos = extPos;
-				extPos = mSearchExtension.find(" ", extPos);
-				chkExt = mSearchExtension.substr(cpos, ((extPos == std::string::npos) ? mSearchExtension.length() - cpos: extPos - cpos));
-
-				//if it matches, add it
-				if(chkExt == extension)
-				{
-					GameData* newGame = new GameData(this, filePath.string(), filePath.stem().string());
-					folder->pushFileData(newGame);
-					break;
-				}else if(extPos != std::string::npos) //if not, add one to the "next position" marker to skip the space when reading the next extension
-				{
-					extPos++;
-				}
-
-			} while(extPos != std::string::npos && chkExt != "" && chkExt.find(".") != std::string::npos);
 		}
 	}
 }
diff --git a/src/components/GuiTheme.cpp b/src/components/GuiTheme.cpp
index 71f9765b5..1c9cb3093 100644
--- a/src/components/GuiTheme.cpp
+++ b/src/components/GuiTheme.cpp
@@ -332,6 +332,9 @@ Gui* GuiTheme::createElement(pugi::xml_node data, Gui* parent)
 //expands a file path (./ becomes the directory of this theme file, ~/ becomes $HOME/)
 std::string GuiTheme::expandPath(std::string path)
 {
+	if(path.empty())
+		return "";
+	
 	if(path[0] == '~')
 		path = getHomePath() + path.substr(1, path.length() - 1);
 	else if(path[0] == '.')