The "Easy XDK Installer"

[Bowlsnapper]

 >Easy XDK Installer V1.4.2<

-------------------------------------------------------------

 

This is an easy way to turn your retail console into a debug kit. There are two main options:

1. Install the XDK dashboard as an "app", meaning that you will have the option to load the dash as an app which will be marked "XDK Launcher" in your apps list. This will boot the dash by booting a Debug version of Cerbios through PBL, which forces the load of the XDK dashboard. This is the safest option, as you have an option in the installer to simply remove this. It is what's recommended for new users who don't know if they even want to run the XDK or are unsure if they want to commit the console they have to it entirely. I foresee a LOT of people using this option.

2 "Standalone mode" turns the console into a full-on, dedicated debug kit. This will wipe your C and E partitions and will end up dedicating the console to this purpose, just like a legitimate MS "Debug Kit". Underneath the XDK Launcher, there is a basic dashboard installed with useful applications and all kinds of goodies which can be accessed through the "Retail" selection (Utilizing Pheonix Bios Loader) in the XDK Launcher. The XDK Launcher will be the default dashboard that you boot up to. The installer also provides the means to flash a debug enabled Cerbios bios through this option at the end of the install. Speaking of that:

Please use common sense when deciding whether to flash the debug bios at the end of the standalone install. If you decide not to flash, you will have a Cerbios Debug ini installed that still directs the bios to boot the XDK Launcher and boot into a debug environment. However, if you do not flash, the Cerbios bios you are using must obviously be hardcoded to read the ini/config file. You will probably know if you have intentionally flashed a bios that specifically ignores the ini, since this is a pretty obscure and rare thing to do, and if you don't know why you did it or that you've done it at all... then damn. If you are unsure what your Cerbios is hardcoded to do, just flash the bios at the end of the standalone install. It will be hardcoded debug, and you will not have any doubts as to what you have flashed. This choice was provided for the same reason that the "Application" and "Standalone" modes were created: Flexibility. If you don't want a hardcoded debug bios for any reason, you will be allowed to keep retail. You have been advised. 

The installer menu items are pretty straightforward. Application mode and Standalone mode both are able to install with either the 4627 or 5849 XDK Launcher. Once you make a selection, simply "Install XDK & Setup XDK-Launcher". The rest takes care of itself. Its as easy as pie. I recommend the newest Launcher as this has the most compatibility with the Win XP SDK/XDK toolkit.

This should cover most case uses. However I will add features and modify the installer over time as I receive feedback. I am researching softmods, although installing on a softmod is not an ideal situation, for a few reasons. One of them being memory.

The only real requirements for this install is 128MB of RAM. This will allow you to have the overhead necessary to run the debug environment and still be able to use the full stock 64MB of RAM that most consoles do. This can even be installed on a console with a stock 8GB HDD. MS Debug Kits were equipped with this. If you don't have 128MB of RAM... The XDK launcher will boot, but your experience will be unstable to varying degrees and I do NOT recommend it. If you would like to use a SuperIO serial debugger, I would recommend performing a TSOP flash and keeping the pin header free for the ribbon cable. LPC breakout boards DO exist however, and this may be an option for you to consider so that you can have a modchip AND have a pin header for the SuperIO. I describe how I built my development kit with SuperIO in the thread I linked below. I absolutely encourage you to build one as it is a satisfying project and super cool to say that you did!

Also included is every single piece of software imaginable on the PC side. Everything from Windows XP itself, to Visual Studio 2003, to the MS VS2003 XDK Installer, and of course, the Virtual Machine HDD image is linked below.

The XDK version numbers are a lie. 5849.16 is the latest version of the XDK.

Please remember: The HDD image is in VMDK file format and can be used with either VMware or VirtualBox. If you use VMware, download the VMware Tools ISO. It is version 10.0.0 and is compatible with XP. If you use VirtualBox, use the VirtualBox Additions ISO. These will install the respective drivers for your virtual machine and make the experience much more pleasurable and easy. Generic drivers suck!  I recommend VirtualBox as they have a link provided for their software. VMWare isn't exactly free (although a free version can be found if you look hard enough) and they make tracking it down a pain. If somebody would like to locate it for me, please do.

 Please do not use vx.dxt (VerifierX) in your "DXT" folder. It serves no purpose and causes some things to not load and to crash, namely anything Cromwell based like PBL or XBlast.

A LOT of this installer was coded by DarkDestiny. Although the collab is no longer a thing, it would feel wrong to not assign credit for this, as it would make it seem like I want people to believe that I was the sole coder of everything that was written. That is not the case and I do not want this to be misrepresented.

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Installer Link:

Drive: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1aW9MXogE_qxcWFLoXXOdrGsN3Wi79Kdn/view?usp=sharing

Virtual Machine XDK HDD Image Link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Du_3Fk0s2gIYu9DBbMXabJiMSRf8KSK5/view?usp=drive_link

VMWare Tools ISO: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1sQuSOaTLFBy7aqtyQavARY-Az9Y15RSl/view?usp=sharing

VirtualBox Additions ISO: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xXHHs7lNT9WeB_wWceMRpxi6a2CDtYu5/view?usp=drive_link

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1.4.2
-Changed and added to all the readmes and further clarified
what everything is and what to be cautious of when using it.

-Cleaned up menu text and made things a little tiny bit neater.

That's pretty much it.

 

1.4.1

-Changed XML commentary, installer messaging and structure, 
as well as finishing readme's for each section and adding further 
explanation of operations so that people can have a better 
understanding of what is being done and how.
-Added ability to say no to flashing Cerbios at the end of the 
Standalone installs. It is a hardcoded debug bios that is flashed. 
However, there is a debug ini that is installed anyway, so if you don't
want to flash a hardcoded debug Cerbios for any reason, you will be 
given the choice not to flash and the debug ini will still enable you to 
boot into the XDK launcher.
-Fixed a bug that copied the incorrect bios to HDD when selecting option 
to flash back to retail bios under "Back to Retail" section.

[SpaghettiCat]

This looks really awesome and just what I needed, thank you.

But the "Welcome Read Me" text file on the disc says that this is only for Xbox versions 1.0-1.4 that have 128MB RAM? Is that right? It would be good to explain the requirements for this disc upfront because most people don't have the 128MB mod. Also would be good to explain what are the requirements in terms of softmod or TSOP/hardmod.

Also it's not clear from the menu which of the menu items correspond to your main options 1) and 2) above. This is something important to document so that nobody wipes their Xbox doing option 2) by accident.

I really don't want to brick or wipe my very nice Xbox, so some simple steps on which menu options to choose to install the XDB dashboard as an app would be nice  

Edited July 14, 2024 by SpaghettiCat

[Bowlsnapper]

3 hours ago, SpaghettiCat said:

This looks really awesome and just what I needed, thank you.

But the "Welcome Read Me" text file on the disc says that this is only for Xbox versions 1.0-1.4 that have 128MB RAM? Is that right? It would be good to explain the requirements for this disc upfront because most people don't have the 128MB mod. Also would be good to explain what are the requirements in terms of softmod or TSOP/hardmod.

Also it's not clear from the menu which of the menu items correspond to your main options 1) and 2) above. This is something important to document so that nobody wipes their Xbox doing option 2) by accident.

I really don't want to brick or wipe my very nice Xbox, so some simple steps on which menu options to choose to install the XDB dashboard as an app would be nice  

Thank you! I will attempt to actually put some of these things in the OP and try to be very clear about what options to choose and why. In the readme's in each section of the disc, I did try to be a bit descriptive about what each item was and how they were being performed, but perhaps the project release would benefit from some clarification. I appreciate your input and would be glad to do so. I'll work on it tonight. Option 2 above states that the installer "wipes" the partitions (As well as the readme of the Standalone" install section), so I was hoping that this would be clear in it's own respect, but perhaps not and could have been a bit too brief, allowing the reader to glance over it if they were not reading too closely.

Yes, the readme states that it is for those versions of the Xbox, and that is because the RAM upgrade is so difficult to pull off on the 1.6 that it was just intended for those consoles, since most people would not have a RAM upgrade on a 1.6. Softmodding is tricky, since things need to be done a certain way in order for this to happen. As an application (utilizing PBL), I think it would work fine, but a standalone install needs to be done a certain way and there is no reason to do it, especially if you have 64MB of RAM. I plan on researching softmodding a bit more so that I can create an option for it, if the user wishes. Maybe I could get with @Rocky5 a bit and if he is willing, he could provide me with a bit of guidance in this respect. 

However, doing this install on a softmodded console in any state, either semi-permanent or as an application, still leaves the issue of having 64MB of RAM, since a softmodder is almost guaranteed to still have a stock amount. I think this is fine for very small applications, but is going to cause issues for a developer if they code something that takes up a fair amount of memory. In other words, it will run, but anything intensive that is run will probably experience issues since there needs to be room for the debug overhead. That is the reason for needing 128MB in a true Debug environment.

In the spirit of having a true debug environment, I would like to mention here for the time being that if somebody wants to utilize the SuperIO serial debugger as I have done with my development kit, versions 1.0 to 1.2 is what I would choose, since LFrame was still hooked up to the LPC and you could extract debug output through the LPC connection. Versions 1.3 and 1.4 have LFrame disconnected from the MCPX, which necessitates some modification. But I know that most people will not be using the serial debugger and so this really is turning your box into a "Debug Kit" rather than a "Development Kit" which requires some hardware modification. At least that is the distinction as I see it.

This project means a lot to me and I certainly don't want anybody to make a mistake that irreversibly damages their Xbox. I only want good things and good vibes! However, I can only put in so many disclaimers and warnings before I start getting repetitive and annoying in the readme's and OP and I don't want to make the disc seem like a ticking time bomb. "Danger, Will Robinson! Danger! If you run this installer, your Xbox may set on fire and burn your house down... and un-neuter your cats!" Lol. It is no more dangerous than an installer disc, as this regularly wipes partitions in many ways, albeit with fair warning. Thank you for taking the time to express your concerns in a constructive and polite way. I truly appreciate it. I will take what you're saying into consideration and try to be very explicit in the OP.

[SpaghettiCat]

Thanks so much for the reply! I got a lot of useful information out of it. I love the way the installer looks, it's so scene-like and professional actually  It even implements a screensaver when idle for a bit

I have a couple of points in case you're interested:

1. The WinXP VM is super useful to me: saves so much time setting up the OS and installing the right developer tools! But it's strange that what is provided is a VMWare image, but the instructions say to also install "VirtualBox Guest editions". The image is for VMWare only: Virtualbox cannot open *.vmx, *.vmfx, etc. files. I was going to convert this image to .OVF which is a non-proprietary VM image format that Virtualbox (and VMWare) are designed to import, and upload it for others.

2. You make a good point about "I don't want to make the disc seem like a ticking time bomb". But as a user who read and re-read the forum post, the old thread, and the README on the disc I got to say that some clarity is needed.

When I boot the disc it shows me the 2 options:

• Easy XDK Installer (IP: DHCP) - Default
• Easy XDK Installer (IP: DHCP) (BFM)

OK, which one wipes my Xbox? The BFM or the "non-BFM"? How can I tell which one is the "app" and which is the "standalone" that will wipe my Xbox?

Good, the first menu item "Boot Menu Read Me" says in the description "In case you're new here, you should really give this a read to get a quick overview about the options you have". OK, great, I open that README and in it it says "Select the IP or DHCP versions of the installer" and to peace out and smoke weed and that's it  OK, but it still doesn't tell me which menu item is the app or standalone, or what the difference between those two is. 

The menu items are called "Installer" so I'm assuming the installation script will start immediately and install, so now I'm sweating scared not to pick the option that will wipe my Xbox. I make a guess that "Default" is the non-wiping option since I trust the developer to be sensible and so I take the risk and select it.

A new menu opens and I open the "Welcome Read Me" and inside it it still doesn't say anything about whether this will install in "app" mode or "standalone" mode. This is where yesterday I stopped because things were unclear and sounded too risky.

3. Today I can see that entering "XBox XDK Setups" shows the options to install App or Standalone; finally a bit of clarity. OK so what's the difference between BFM and non-BFM in the first menu?

4. The previous release thread scared the crap out of me because it said:
 

Quote

> Does the softmod method work on other Xbox revisions?
> It can be done, but if anything corrupty is done to your HDD, you are FUCKED if you try it, and bricked. It is a risky thing to do. 

So is that risk only there if I have a 1.6 softmodded Xbox? A 1.4 softmodded Xbox won't have that risk of bricking?

MVG made a video on how to convert an Xbox to a Debug Kit, but mentioned nothing about softmodded Xboxes being at risk.

How can it be bricked anyway if it's installed as an "app". Worst thing is you boot up your normal dashboard, run the Debug Dashboard, and it crashes because out-of--memory. Restarting the Xbox will boot the normal dashboard again.

5. In that same release thread someone mentioned this warning:

Quote

> Do not run the recovery disk or the remote recovery tool, it will break your Xbox. Amongst other things it will try to reflash your bios.

That's a good thing to write into the OP. I have no idea what "running the recovery disk" or "remote recovery tool" are or where they're accessed, but I'll look out for them.

6. Depending on the answer to "4.", if it's clear my Xbox won't be bricked, I'll install XDK as an App and test if 64MB RAM is enough. I only want to start retail games in a debugger or somehow dump the memory of running games so that I can create trainers: if I dump the memory I can find the address of the value I want the trainer to change.

Thanks so much for this tool!!

Edited July 15, 2024 by SpaghettiCat

[Bowlsnapper]

20 hours ago, SpaghettiCat said:

Thanks so much for the reply! I got a lot of useful information out of it. I love the way the installer looks, it's so scene-like and professional actually  It even implements a screensaver when idle for a bit

I have a couple of points in case you're interested:

1. The WinXP VM is super useful to me: saves so much time setting up the OS and installing the right developer tools! But it's strange that what is provided is a VMWare image, but the instructions say to also install "VirtualBox Guest editions". The image is for VMWare only: Virtualbox cannot open *.vmx, *.vmfx, etc. files. I was going to convert this image to .OVF which is a non-proprietary VM image format that Virtualbox (and VMWare) are designed to import, and upload it for others.

2. You make a good point about "I don't want to make the disc seem like a ticking time bomb". But as a user who read and re-read the forum post, the old thread, and the README on the disc I got to say that some clarity is needed.

When I boot the disc it shows me the 2 options:

• Easy XDK Installer (IP: DHCP) - Default
• Easy XDK Installer (IP: DHCP) (BFM)

OK, which one wipes my Xbox? The BFM or the "non-BFM"? How can I tell which one is the "app" and which is the "standalone" that will wipe my Xbox?

Good, the first menu item "Boot Menu Read Me" says in the description "In case you're new here, you should really give this a read to get a quick overview about the options you have". OK, great, I open that README and in it it says "Select the IP or DHCP versions of the installer" and to peace out and smoke weed and that's it  OK, but it still doesn't tell me which menu item is the app or standalone, or what the difference between those two is. 

The menu items are called "Installer" so I'm assuming the installation script will start immediately and install, so now I'm sweating scared not to pick the option that will wipe my Xbox. I make a guess that "Default" is the non-wiping option since I trust the developer to be sensible and so I take the risk and select it.

A new menu opens and I open the "Welcome Read Me" and inside it it still doesn't say anything about whether this will install in "app" mode or "standalone" mode. This is where yesterday I stopped because things were unclear and sounded too risky.

3. Today I can see that entering "XBox XDK Setups" shows the options to install App or Standalone; finally a bit of clarity. OK so what's the difference between BFM and non-BFM in the first menu?

4. The previous release thread scared the crap out of me because it said:
 

So is that risk only there if I have a 1.6 softmodded Xbox? A 1.4 softmodded Xbox won't have that risk of bricking?

MVG made a video on how to convert an Xbox to a Debug Kit, but mentioned nothing about softmodded Xboxes being at risk.

How can it be bricked anyway if it's installed as an "app". Worst thing is you boot up your normal dashboard, run the Debug Dashboard, and it crashes because out-of--memory. Restarting the Xbox will boot the normal dashboard again.

5. In that same release thread someone mentioned this warning:

That's a good thing to write into the OP. I have no idea what "running the recovery disk" or "remote recovery tool" are or where they're accessed, but I'll look out for them.

6. Depending on the answer to "4.", if it's clear my Xbox won't be bricked, I'll install XDK as an App and test if 64MB RAM is enough. I only want to start retail games in a debugger or somehow dump the memory of running games so that I can create trainers: if I dump the memory I can find the address of the value I want the trainer to change.

Thanks so much for this tool!!

The readme does not say to "Smoke Weed". Lol.  It says "4:20". I am Bowlsnapper, and so that is what I put as my signature. "Peace Out" Is Dark's signature. Although I've put in a few things already that make a small statement here and there at random just for fun, telling people to smoke weed is not something I would feel comfortable with saying outright and I think this would make the installer look unprofessional. Now, if people see this and decide that they wanna' smoke a bowl at that particular moment, I would not be opposed to this one bit.

I actually noticed the VMWare/Virtualbox discrepancy in the OP there and I planned to address that. I use the HDD image with VirtualBox, but it can be used with VMWare as well. The point I was making is that virtual PC software has its own software that enhances the VM experience, with VM video drivers, as well as LAN and a few others so that the user can have a more complete experience without generic drivers. I absolutely recommend this. I imported the HDD image file into VirtualBox and I use it myself. The disk image provided is VMDK file format and should be perfectly usable for anybody else as well. I loaded the image into my new virtual machine and then installed Guest Additions. It works perfectly. What the OVF will have however, is settings for the VM so the user does not have to configure them manually. This would be helpful and I will try to get it done before the week is over.

https://smallbusiness.chron.com/open-vmdk-virtualbox-28847.html

The "Default" or "BFM" options are not a point at which anything is wiped. It is simply selecting what environment you would like to boot the installer into. Formatting occurs when you would like to use the standalone option of the installer, and this is well into the menu of both the BFM and Default selections. "Default" will boot you into the installer using the bios you have booted your Xbox with. "BFM" boots the installer by loading a Cerbios BFM bios into memory and booting the installer with that. The installer is identical, using both options. The readme's of the Standalone and Application modes of the installer describe the differences between both methods. This is not in the readme of the opening screen because you are not at that point in the installer yet. Perhaps I will add this information into the readmes so that there can not possibly be any doubt as to what is being done and what is offered at every step. I am looking at the Boot Menu readme now and I understand why you are bringing this up... the readme is practically blank. I don't know how I overlooked this. I will update this and make sure people are able to know what to select and why.

I am now seeing that it does not state anywhere in the readme or the interface/installer that formatting will occur, so I will remedy this in a hotfix, hopefully by the end of the night. Hopefully the OP will tide people over for the next few hours. 

Like I mentioned, when softmodded, you have no risk of bricking your xbox attempting to install as an application. I believe that the application mode loads Cerbios Debug through PBL and should reveal the true C partition allowing for the boot of the XDK Launcher. Installing using BFM mode should also reveal the true C partition and allow people to access the true C partition and install the XDK Launcher. A standalone install is what is problematic. That's all. It can be done, but there is no reason to go through all the effort to do so when most people will be running on 64MB of memory anyway, and running a retail game is not guaranteed to work. Maybe somebody can convince me otherwise, but I feel that trying to debug retail games on 64MB of RAM reliably is something that would necessitate even MORE support and cause even MORE problems for people. "Heeeelp. I used your XDK installer because you said you can run it on softmodded consoles and the game I'm trying to run is crashing. What do I do pleeeeeeze!?" If you are softmodded, I would say that the installer is probably not a great option, even though it can theoretically be done. There are limits within reason for when this installer should be used and not be used and people should rely on common sense and reason in this instance. Nothing is stopping them. I assume MVG did not mention softmodded consoles in his video because this was an obscure use case. Anybody wanting to create a Debug Kit using a retail Xbox should do so after installing 128MB of RAM and this is what he covered.

The Microsoft XDK recovery disc and remote recovery are tools meant to restore a damaged or blank HDD with a debug/development kit. The reason that this bricks your Xbox is that it flashes an MS debug bios that is meant to run on an Xbox that uses an MCPX V2. Commercially sold Xboxes use a V3 MCPX. This incompatibility causes the unit to brick with an MS debug bios.

You seem like an intelligent guy and I have faith that you will not brick your Xbox and I feel confident that you have no reason to be scared to do anything since I'm sure you understand how this installer works, at least to some extent. I'm sure you can understand that the thread already contains much explanation and if my readmes are too long in the installer, people may get bored or overwhelmed and simply exit them and just proceed without reading everything. I do not want this to happen, so I will create a zip instead of simply hosting the ISO and put a lot of this information in there. I will also update the readmes so that things are as clear as possible in them. This will benefit the project in the end and I am glad that you have raised the points you have, as I stated in the OP that I am welcome to suggestions so that I can make the installer better. 

The thread that you are linking to was deleted for a few reasons. I made an effort to clear the slate and start anew. That is why this thread was created and this is the one you should reference from now on. The thread you are linking to is a google cached page. This means that you have been following the thread for some time and actually went out of your way to recover it. I am not sure why. I appreciate your suggestions as they are helpful and I am glad that you have taken such a strong interest in the XDK Installer in particular, especially for an extended period of time, but lets try to focus on the here and now, as opposed to the past, okay?

[SpaghettiCat]

Thank you so much for all the extra info! Much appreciated. It answers all my questions and will be helpful for anyone googling for years and decades to come.
If you had a Github for this project I could contribute some of these fixes, but of course I understand why it cannot be there because of the proprietary stuff in the ISO.

I only linked the cached page because I was looking for any shred of extra information to make sure I was not going to screw up my Xbox, of course we can forget about that thread now that there is so much info in this thread.

[Bowlsnapper]

Updated to 1.4.2

[Cyberxine]

I can neither mount the ISO (meaning it's corrupt) nor read the burned disc. It has a corrupt superblock. I am downloading the file again from Google Drive, because there's a possibility there's a corrupt bit, but I don't think so?

Can you please share a SHA-256 for the download so that we can verify integrity?

[Bowlsnapper]

d5f10897577366e0cf982b2ec4b7e7f11d06f2d712baed5ac55925e6627da0d1 Is what it should be. If it isn't, I just need to upload it again. My apologies, if that's the case.

@Cyberxine

[Cyberxine]

$ sha256sum --check checksum
Easy XDK Installer 1.4.2.iso: OK

Quote

"Interesting."

Do you have any idea why the ISO couldn't be mounted? Are you able to mount the disc on your machine, @Bowlsnapper? I am using Xfburn to burn to a disc, which I've never had any troubles with before. Mounting ISO images with my file manager on Fedora MATE has never not worked. Is there something special about this ISO I'm not aware of; anything Xbox DVD partition related?

Edited December 24, 2024 by Cyberxine
Tagging Bowlsnapper.

[Cyberxine]

I also tried another "Easy XDK Installer" I found elsewhere (I don't know if the file is safe, but I risked it), which I wasn't able to mount nor read after burning.

Edited December 24, 2024 by Cyberxine
Fix a typo. XDK, not XDG.

[Cyberxine]

extract-xiso busted it wide open for me.

I'll need to investigate if the discs I burned it to were the problem. Each were a little scratched up, but not unreadable.

[Bowlsnapper]

8 hours ago, Cyberxine said:

$ sha256sum --check checksum
Easy XDK Installer 1.4.2.iso: OK

Do you have any idea why the ISO couldn't be mounted? Are you able to mount the disc on your machine, @Bowlsnapper? I am using Xfburn to burn to a disc, which I've never had any troubles with before. Mounting ISO images with my file manager on Fedora MATE has never not worked. Is there something special about this ISO I'm not aware of; anything Xbox DVD partition related?

Forgive me for being stupid. Now I understand why you're having an issue.

You can't browse an Xbox DVD with a regular PC OS. You need to either use a 3rd party utility like XDVDMulleter or Extract-XISO. This is because the ISO is in the proprietary XDVDFS filesystem, instead of a regular data disc, for ensured compatibility. I would suggest using the latest version (1.4.2), since there were some bug fixes and improvements made, as well as more documentation on the disc itself. Please consider coming into the Discord Server, so that I can help a bit more directly, however, I will still answer any questions you have here on the forum.

BSX Mods: https://discord.gg/kFRKK77dEk

[DoorM4n]

Looking to get this installed! Does anyone have any experience installing the XDK launcher (application installer) with Rocky 5 softmod? I want to make sure this won't screw up any softmod files before I press forward.

[Bowlsnapper]

I have spent the last hour researching this and I cannot pin down which files are used to run the exploit. The contents of the C partition that get extracted and installed is 166MB and is pretty extensive, including the dash xbe itself. 

This is a question that has come up before and I never really seem to have a good answer. If anybody with knowledge of softmodding is able to shed some light on this, I'm sure many would appreciate it.

[Rocky5]

On 2/22/2025 at 8:06 PM, Bowlsnapper said:

I have spent the last hour researching this and I cannot pin down which files are used to run the exploit. The contents of the C partition that get extracted and installed is 166MB and is pretty extensive, including the dash xbe itself. 

This is a question that has come up before and I never really seem to have a good answer. If anybody with knowledge of softmodding is able to shed some light on this, I'm sure many would appreciate it.

With the Xbox Softmodding Tool softmod you will face the issue of the shadowc partition since this is mandatory it takes up most of the real C partition to give users 485MB of free space on C.

I don’t tell people how to disable that stuff as that will then cause problems down the line when someone does it and borks something (it’s happed plenty of times) and am blamed for there incompetence. (it’s why I had to make a folder, “Do not touch anything in here!”

Just replace the softmod with a cerbios softmod, you will end up with the same result if you were to disable the shadowc on mine bar some nice foldering. You can use my hardmod version of dashloader as the main boot xbe that way folks dashboards just load like normal. 
 

Just remember there will be no protection on C so you will need to make sure folk know this or they will hunt you down and blame you

[Bowlsnapper]

5 hours ago, Rocky5 said:

With the Xbox Softmodding Tool softmod you will face the issue of the shadowc partition since this is mandatory it takes up most of the real C partition to give users 485MB of free space on C.

I don’t tell people how to disable that stuff as that will then cause problems down the line when someone does it and borks something (it’s happed plenty of times) and am blamed for there incompetence. (it’s why I had to make a folder, “Do not touch anything in here!”

Just replace the softmod with a cerbios softmod, you will end up with the same result if you were to disable the shadowc on mine bar some nice foldering. You can use my hardmod version of dashloader as the main boot xbe that way folks dashboards just load like normal. 
 

Just remember there will be no protection on C so you will need to make sure folk know this or they will hunt you down and blame you

Yeah... Your last point is one reason of many that I don't want to officially give the green light on this. There are too many layers to this that make me uncomfortable. You have to kinda trick a soft mod into running a setup like this. Softmods are built around a shadow C and they have 64 megs of RAM. It just seems like it would be more trouble than it's worth. It may actually be more work to do this than it is to just hardmod and install some RAM. I wonder how stable the xdk launcher is on 64 megs...

 

Thank you, Rocky.

[peterpop]

The big warning signs are used about the recovery tool bricking the xbox. Is the danger the same if using a modchip like openXenium with PrometheOS? Wouldn't it just be a matter of flashing another kernel over it? I can see the problem if booting from the TSOP.

[Bowlsnapper]

5 hours ago, peterpop said:

The big warning signs are used about the recovery tool bricking the xbox. Is the danger the same if using a modchip like openXenium with PrometheOS? Wouldn't it just be a matter of flashing another kernel over it? I can see the problem if booting from the TSOP.

Are you talking about the MS recovery disc? This is different than that. It does ask if you want to flash a hardcoded debug bios at the end if you're doing the standalone install, but it won't brick your console. It's not flashing an MS debug bios, it's flashing Cerbios. The recovery disc does try to flash a bios that's intended for the MSPX V2, and it works differently than the 3, so it can't be used. But you will not have that problem here.

You do NOT need to trip.