Xbox 360 Bad Update – Mod EVERY console and play all the games. No soldering. Just with a USB drive.

For quite a few years hacking the Xbox 360 has involved opening up the console and modifying the motherboard with either glitch chips or, more recently, just a couple of wires that allow the modding software to exploit the processor and run our Homebrew code. These Reset Glitch Hacks are still the best way to mod your console but they suffer from two downsides.

One of course is that you need the skills to modify the motherboard. It’s not too hard but if you’re new to soldering there’s always the risk of damaging the circuits.

Secondly the mod only works on the older versions of the Phat and Slim models. Later Slim and Super Slim consoles just could not be hacked.

But this changed in 2025 with the release of the Bad Update software exploit. I have made a video describing how this mod works so for more information please do have a look at that, but basically the exploit uses a bug in the game updating code to get access to the hypervisor system on the Xbox 360, again giving us the ability to run our own code to control the console.

This solves the two issues with the RGH mods. No hardware modifications and an exploit that works on every Xbox 360 model.

So in this video I’ll show you how to install Bad Update with just a simple USB thumb drive. Everything we need can be easily downloaded with no need to buy any games.

Part of the setup process does need us to modify some Xbox files and we’ll be using a Windows command line app to do that. So you will need a Windows PC or a Linux machine that can run Windows terminal applications using something like Wine.

Not Quite a Full Softmod

Before we start just a few notes to limit your expectations of this mod.

This isn’t a true softmod. The exploit is performed in software after the console boots up. This means that if the console is reset, or you power off, or it crashes the exploit is cleared from memory and has to be re enabled. Not fully reinstalled, but you still need to run the enabler to get back control of the console. This process can take a while to complete so you can’t just boot up the Xbox and start playing straight away. You could be waiting for up to twenty minutes though it’s usually faster.

If you can hard mod your console then I’d still advise this route but Bad Update now gives you two working options.

With that said let’s exploit our Xbox!

Setting Up

First off we need to get a few things set up to run the exploit.

The Bad Update code needs a specific version of the Xbox firmware. To check your console you need to need to go into the Settings, System and Console Settings and then select System Info near the bottom of the list. This will display your current dashboard version on the right. At the time of making this video Bad Update needs version 17559 which is the latest release. If you’re installing the exploit and are on a higher dashboard setting then you’ll need to check the Bad Update repository to make sure it’s compatible with your version. If you’re on a lower version then you’ll need to run an update.

Updating the Dashboard

We’re not going to use the normal Microsoft update as we can’t guarantee it will install the version we need. We’re going to install the update using a USB drive.

At this point it’s worth considering what USB drive you’re going to use. Bad Update itself is going to be stored on this USB drive and it will need to be attached to the console while you’re using the exploit. You can also use the USB drive for your Homebrew apps and even your game files. So make sure you choose a USB drive that’s large enough to hold everything, and fast enough to not become a bottleneck as you try to load and run files.

For my setup I’m using a 64GB USB stick and will store my games on the internal hard drive.

Plug your USB drive into the Xbox and go back to your System Settings menu and then select the Storage option. If you’ve used the USB drive before in the Xbox it will show as a USB drive, otherwise, like me, you’ll see an uninitialized drive. Highlight it and then look at the button options in the bottom left. If the drive is already Xbox ready you’ll have a Y button. Use that and then format the drive. Otherwise press A to format the drive. Remember that this process will wipe your drive clean so make sure there isn’t anything on the drive that you need to keep.

This gives us a correctly formatted USB drive that will work with our console. We now need to download our firmware.

https://digiex.net/threads/xbox-360-dashboard-system-update-2-0-17559-0-download-with-avatars.16047/

Back on our computer we need to go to this forum post, and I’ll put this link into the video description. If you now scroll down a bit you should see a link to download the 17559 version dashboard. Download this to your computer. This will be an archive file so you’ll need to extract it’s contents out to a folder on your PC.

If we now look inside this folder you’ll see the actual update code folder. This needs to be copied over to the root of our Xbox USB drive.

Sometimes you may have an issue where the USB drive that was formatted by the Xbox shows as full. If you have this error just format the drive in your computer as an FAT32 drive and try the copy process again.

Update the Console

Once that’s copied over we need to take the USB drive back to the Xbox. Make sure you’re on the main dashboard and plug in the USB drive. The console should see the update file and offer to restart to install it. Just select Yes and let it run through the update process. This will be in two stages with a reboot in the middle. Just wait until you see the main dashboard again.

Go over to the Settings page, then System Settings and console info and you should now be on the right dashboard version. We can now use our updated console to reformat the USB drive to ensure it matches our new firmware so go back to the System Settings, Storage, select the USB drive with the Y button and then format it. This gives us a fully cleaned drive formatted to the latest dashboard version.

Our console and USB drive are now ready for the mod.

Downloading Bad Update

We need to go back onto our computer and you’ll need that USB drive plugged into it so we can build our exploit code package.

First off we’ll need the Bad Update exploit code itself.

https://github.com/grimdoomer/Xbox360BadUpdate

If you head over to the main github repository you’ll find loads of information about the project along with the full instructions for what we’re about to do. Please do have a look through this to get an overview of what’s going on and to get  feel for how much work has gone into creating this great software mod.

But we need to get some files, so head over to the releases section, and then in the latest release post download the Bad Update Retail zip file and the tools zip file. I’m saving both of these into a Bad Update folder on my hard drive so that I can keep all my files together in one location. We are going to be downloading quite a few blocks of code and we’re going to have to modify some of them so I do advise getting your files organised.

Once we’ve downloaded those archive files we can extract them into their own folders so we have access to the actual files we want and we can then delete the downloaded archives. This will leave us with the tools folder and the bad update folder.

For each of the archive files we download during this preparation you’ll need to do the same thing to get the required files into their own folder. So if I don’t show that for each file just assume that’s what I’ve done.

What Game to Use

Next we need a game that Bad Update can use for the update exploit entry point. At the start this had to be a retail copy of Tony Hawk’s American Wasteland which sent prices of that game sky rocketing to upwards of £100 per copy. Luckily the developers found that the free demo of Rock Band Blitz also contained the exploitable code so we can simply download a copy of that from this Digex page. Again make sure you extract the archive file.

https://digiex.net/threads/rock-band-blitz-xbox-live-arcade-download-delisted-from-xbla.15780/

Replacing the Default Payload

The first piece of software we need is a package called XeUnshackle. When the Bad Update exploit succeeds in gaining control of the console it needs some base level code to replace the official menu system so we can then run our Homebrew apps and control the Xbox. XeUnshackle replaces the payload package in the Bad Update downloads with one that provides a lot of extra features and compatibility over the original mod software. This really lets us start to make full use of the modded console. Again, there’s lots of info on the GitHub page so do have a look through that.

https://github.com/Byrom90/XeUnshackle

Essentially XeUnshackle allows you to run DashLaunch plugins which allows a Bad Update exploited console to do most of the things that a fully RGH hacked console can do. It’s also going to let us boot into our custom dashboard so we can get straight to playing our games. But we’ll talk about that as we install it.

Head over to this GitHub repo and go into the releases section and download the latest version. Again this will be in zip file format so make sure to extract the files into their own folder.

Applications

That gives us everything we need to run the Bad Update exploit. But once we’ve got that going we will need some Homebrew applications to let us take full advantage of the modded console.

XEXMenu allows us to do some base level tasks such as browsing our files and launching other apps. So head over to this forum thread and download the Live version which will allow us to run it from our USB drive.

https://digiex.net/threads/xexmenu-1-1-download-xex-menu-iso-live-and-xex-file-manager-for-xbox-360.11096/

The very first thing we’ll need to do once we get up and running is to back up our system NAND data. This code is essential if we ever need to recover our console after something bad happens. Without it you could well end up with a bricked Xbox360. We need the Simple 360 NAND Flasher app that you can download from this website.

https://www.consolemods.org/wiki/File:Simple_360_NAND_Flasher.7z

Finally it would be great to have some sort of dashboard to manage our games and give us a great looking games launcher screen. There are a few different apps you can use but I’m going to use the Aurora app. So pull up this webpage and download and extract the linked file.

http://phoenix.xboxunity.net/#/news

Preparing the Files

So that’s all our downloads sorted out. If you look in your download area you should now have a number of extracted folders for each of the files we downloaded.

We now need to build these into our USB drive.

To make this easier I’m going to open up two explorer windows, one set to look at the files in my PC, one for the USB dive. This will just make it easier to show you where the files and being moved to. We do need to be able to see hidden files and file extensions so make sure these are turned on from the View, Show menu in File Explorer.

First we’ll deal with the Bad Update files.

Open your extracted folder and inside there you’ll find two sub folders. Each game that you can use to trigger the exploit needs its own customised files so we’re using Rock Band Blitz. Open up the folder and simply copy everything to the root of your USB drive. If you get any messages about overwriting files just say yes.

Now we need to install XeUnshackle. Open up its extracted folder and you should see this set of files. There is a readme file in this package which does give you a lot of information. If you’re planning on running a stealth server or more than just playing games then please do have a look through. There are certain aspects of the package that you need to be aware of. But for most of us we can just get on with the installation.

Again all we need to do is to copy everything onto the root of the USB drive. This will ask about overwriting files so you must say yes. This will replace some of the Bad Update files with XeUnshackle versions which is what we want.

Next we’ll copy over the Rock Band Blitz files. If you open up the extracted folder you’ll find a Contents folder, then a 16 0s folder and then the Rock Band Blitz package. If you’ve played around with a Jtag or RGH modded system you’ll be familiar with the GoD style format for games.

If I look in the same location on the USB drive we’ll find the GoD package folder created by the Bad Update package. We need to merge these two folders so drag the Rock Band Blitz package folder into the 16 0s folder on your USB drive. This now gives us the game files for Rock Band Blitz with a game save file from the Bad Update package. It’s this save file that will make the game trigger the exploit.

Now we’ll install the downloaded XeXMenu package. Open the extracted folder and you’ll probably find two archive files in here. We want the LIVE version so extract those files into their own folder. Inside that you’ll find a C0DE9999 folder. This too needs to be copied over to the 16 0s folder on the USB drive.

Now it’s time for the actual Homebrew applications.

These need to be prepared in a special way for Bad Update to be able to run them. The Xbox 360 executable files used by the homebrew apps need to be patched to have various restrictions removed from them. On an RGH modded machine the modded firmware handles this. On Bad Update we need a Windows App to patch the files.

This is something you’ll need to do for all the homebrew apps you want to install, so let’s run through the process with our Simple NAND Flasher app and then I’ll modify the Aurora app in the same way.

Open up the Simple NAND Flasher package. In there you’ll find the code file in the Default. Xex executable. We now need to move the app’s default.xex file to the XePatcher folder in the Extracted Tools folder that we downloaded onto our PC. So highlight the file and cut it out. Then navigate to the Tools folder and then the XePatcher folder and paste the file there.

The XexTool.exe file is the actual application we need to use, but we do need to run it from the command line, we can’t double click to run it. If you’ve got a command line application like PowerShell installed you’ll be able to just right click in the XexPatcher folder and open the command line, or you can go up to the path in file explorer and delete what’s there and type in cmd. This will open the command line and drop you into the correct folder.

If you type the dir command you should be able to see the files we need to use.

To patch the xex file you need to type the following command and it needs to be exactly as I type here.

XexTool.exe -m r -r a Default.xex

Press return and the app will patch the Default.xex file.

From the output you can see that it’s removed the restrictions and then converted the file to a retail package file. Bad Update needs executable files to be the retail versions. It can’t run development packages.

Lastly we need to move this patched file back into our Homebrew app folder so again cut the file from the XexPatcher folder, navigate back to the Simple 360 NAND Flasher folder and paste it back in.

Again as I mentioned you’ll need to do this to all the xex executable files in your homebrew apps to get them to work with Bad Update.

We can now go to the root of our USB drive and create an Apps folder for our Homebrew apps.

All we need to do then is copy the Simple 360 NAND Flasher folder into this new Apps folder. And that’s our first Homebrew app ready to go. So I’m going to do the same to the Aurora app.

That’s our USB drive ready to go. So lets take it over to our Xbox360 and plug it in there.

Protecting from Bans and Blocks

We’re now ready to run the exploit.

First though we need to make sure that our console and accounts aren’t going to get blocked by Microsoft. If your console connects to the Microsoft Live servers once Bad Update has been installed you do have that risk of being banned. So before we start you need to disconnect from your network.

If you’re using an ethernet connection unplug it. If you’re on WiFi you’ll need to go to the settings page, Network settings and then forget your WiFi connection. This will make sure that the console can’t access the Microsoft servers. From this point on it’s best to leave the console offline. As we’ll see in a moment we will be able to reconnect to download game covers and so on, and XeUnshackle will block the console from connecting to the Live servers. But Bad Update is a non persistent mod which means that when the Xbox first boots up it will be in full retail mode. If it tries to connect to the Live servers any protection from your Bad Update code won’t be active.

If you do enable your network, which you can safely do to get title updates and cover art in Aurora, then make sure to turn it back off again once the downloads have finished.

Checking Before the Exploit

We can check that the USB drive is working by going to our Settings page, System and then Storage Devices. You should see the USB drive listed. If you have 2 USB drives attached make sure you unplug the other one so you only have the Bad Update drive attached.

Next we need to make sure that no Rock Band Blitz data is on the console as this will interfere with the exploit. Back in the Storage menu we need to check in the internal storage. So look on your hard drive and go to Game and Apps section and then look for any Rock Band Blitz content. I’ve not got any here but if you do you can either just select it with the Y button and delete. Of if you want to save the data click on the Move option and copy it to your USB drive. This will save your game data into a folder in the Content, 16 0s folder. You’ll then need to move it off the USB drive and save it on your computer. If you’re not sure which folders are your game data just look at the timestamps on the folders. Because the Xbox 360 is offline it will set the date to some time in 2005. So those are the folders you’ve just moved off the console.

Now we need to create a new profile on the Xbox. This is going to be a local profile so it won’t be connected to Microsoft Live. Open up the guide menu and create a profile. You can store it wherever you like, but since all our Bad Update stuff is on the USB drive I’m going to save it there. Give it some name you’ll recognise as the Bad Update profile and then complete the process. This is the profile we’ll be using to work with our exploited console.

If you want you can set this profile to be the one automatically signed in when the console boots up. On the guide menu go to settings and then profile. Then select sign in preferences and set this account to auto sign in.

Run the Exploit

So finally we’ve cleaned our console, we’re offline, we’ve got our USB drive attached and we’ve got our Bad Update profile signed in.

This is going to be the starting point for any time we need to enable the mod. So if you power off the machine or it crashes, reboot, sign in to this profile and go from here.

Use the main menu to go to the Games section.

Scroll through until you find Rock Band Blitz and launch it with the A button. At the start screen just give it 10 seconds of so to initialise itself.

Now you need to get out your phone, or a stopwatch or some sort of timer. We need to set an alarm for 20 minutes time. This may sound strange but it will become clear in a second.

On the Xbox press A to start the game. It will now ask you to select a device so select the USB drive and press A. Bad Update will start the exploit and try to hack the system.

Start your timer!

We now have to wait. The Bad Update code is trying to create a situation on the console where it can gain access to the Xbox Hypervisor code layer. This process involves setting up competing processes within the game code, but it’s not going to work straight away. It can take up to 20 minutes to trigger.

Even after 20 minutes it might not have been able to get the exact conditions it needs, hence the timer. If your timer reaches 20 minutes unfortunately this run hasn’t worked. You need to power off the console, reboot and return to our starting point. Then run the exploit again, including the timer.

This is the big downside to Bad Update. It can take some time to get into the system. Usually it will break in within a reasonable time, but sometimes it can take multiple tries to get it to work.

You can decrease this time by detecting when the exploit fails. Look at the background on the Rock Band Blitz start screen. If the exploit is still trying this background will be moving and there will be music playing. If these stop the exploit has failed and you can just restart immediately without waiting the full 20 minutes.

You can also check the progress by looking at the LEDs on the power button. At the start only one quadrant will be lit. As the exploit progresses you’ll get two and then three quadrants. Finally the LEDs will start to do change sequence and at this point the exploit is almost finished.

Success!

Eventually the exploit will succeed and you’ll have a modded system.

For me this first run took 6 goes, each taking about 10 minutes before the background and music stopped. I’m hoping this is unusually long as the success rate is supposed to be about 1 in 3.

Anyway the exploit has worked and the Xbox is now booting up the XeUnshackle payload. At this point it’s giving us the opportunity to save some important files about our console. So make sure you press the X button to save the console information and then the Y button to save the bootloader file. These will be saved to your USB drive.

With those saved press the back button and you’ll drop into the normal dashboard.

Backup Your NAND

We can now start to run our Homebrew Apps.

Go over to your games menu and then find XexMenu. Run that and you should drop into your first homebrew app.

XeXMenu is sort of like a base file and app navigator. You can use the left and right bumper buttons to move between storage areas and then the d-pad to select items. So find your USB drive and then select the Apps folder, or whatever you called your homebrew apps directory.

Inside there you should see Aurora and Simple NAND Flasher. Select Simple NAND Flasher and then select the Default.xex file to launch it.

This will start to examine your console and generate some files for you. The CPU key is stored in the cpukey.txt file that will be saved in the Simple NAND Flasher folder.

We can then press the X button to take a backup dump of the NAND data. This too will be saved to the USB drive so let’s make sure that’s all safe. Press any button to exit the app and you’ll drop back into the main menu. Log out of your profile so we can unplug the USB drive and then take it back to your computer.

On there navigate to the USB drive, Apps and Simple NAND Flasher. Here we need to copy the cpukey.txt and flashdmp.bin files somewhere safe. These files are very important. If you damage the NAND data in your console in the future it will stop working. You will only be able to fix it if you have these files. These are specific to your console so you won’t find anything suitable online. If you’re just playing games you’re very very unlikely to break the console but just in case keep these files safe.

We can also then go back to the root of the USb and then into the BadUpdatePayload folder. In there you’ll find a ConsoleInfo.txt file and then a bootloader file with your motherboard type in the title, so for my Trinity based Xbox I’ve got Trinity-1bl. Again these files need to be safely stored wit the others.

With that all backed up it’s time to play some games.

Launching Games

Since we’ve got the USB drive in our PC let’s drop a game on there to test our system.

Probably the most used feature of a modded Xbox 360 is to play games from legally obtained backup files. You can either make these yourself from your game disks or find them elsewhere. If you do go online please do make sure you check any copyright regulations in your region as mostly these files are still legally protected.

Either way you’ll need to format your game files into some sort of package that the Xbox can use. This is quite a big topic so I’ve made a video on how to do this. Please do have a look at that for full details on the different ways you can transfer games and how to do  it. For this video I’m going to use a Game on Demand or GoD package that I’ve created from a game ISO file. Again all of this is covered in detail in my playing games video.

The GoD package is exactly the same as the Rock Band Blitz package we downloaded earlier. It’s identified by its title ID and all we need to do is copy the whole folder into the 16 0s folder in the Content folder on our USB drive.

Once that’s copied we need to patch the executable files. For this we’re going to use a specialist app. This will make sure that we have the best chance of getting our game up and running.

https://consolemods.org/wiki/Xbox_360:360_Content_Manager

So head over to this webpage and download the 360 Content Manager App. This will come down as an archive file so again extract it into its own folder. If we then use our file explorer to navigate to the extracted folder we can run the 360 Content Manager exe file.

This will launch the app which first off asks you what you want to do. So our files are currently on the USB drive on our PC. So select Browse content on PC. Just read through the pop up message and when you’re ok launch into the actual app.

We now need to find our GoD package. Use the folder tree on the left to expand out your disk drives until you find the Content and 16 0s folder on the USB drive. You now need to find the GoD folder for your game. If you expand a folder and highlight the contents you should get a list of the game title. Otherwise just look at the game folder on your PC and match the title ID.

So you see here that the app has correctly identified my game. If I highlight the game and we look in the bottom section of the app you can see we’ve got the game details, but in this box it’s marked as LOCKED. In this state Bad Update won’t be able to play it.

All I need to do is check the game tickbox in the top section and then right click the game title. I can then Unlock the file and it should open up the patcher window. I can then patch the file and once it shows as patched I can close this window and it will drop me back into the main screen. If I now highlight the file it should show as UNLOCKED so it’s ready to play.

Sometimes you might get a game show up as UNLOCKED but my advice would be to go through the unlock process anyway just to make sure.

So we can now take the USB drive back to the Xbox360.

Plug in the USB drive and launch XeXMenu again.

This time we’re going to go to the Apps folder on the USB drive and find Aurora. Inside there launch the Aurora.xex file.

You should now be into the Aurora Dashboard.

Aurora allows us to scan our storage areas for playable games. At the moment it’s probably not scanning anywhere so we need to tell it where we keep our games.

Click the start button to get into the settings page and then go to the Content option. Under Manage Paths we need to add a path. Each path we add tells Aurora about a folder where it should look to find games. Select the Change button. You now need to navigate to your USB drive and then the Content folder.

Our games are in the 16 0s folder so highlight it and then press Y to select it.

Next you have to specify how deep into the folder Aurora will scan so we can set this to 3.

Next click save and that’s now added our USB folder to the scanned paths.

If you do save other games or other game formats in separate folders you will need to add those paths into Aurora before it will find your games. I’m also going to add my Apps folder so that I can launch those from Aurora as well as in a bit I’ll show you how to use Aurora as your default dashboard.

If you now click the Scan Now button Aurora will go off and find the games. I also tand to leave the AutoScan function on so Aurora will always be checking for new games as I load them.

Back out to the Aurora dashboard and you’ll see place holders for your games and apps. We’ll see how to get some artwork in a second but for now you should be able to scroll through the titles until you find your game and then launch it.

So that’s our system working now so can exploit the console, load up our homebrew and launch our games from backup files. The last thing we need to do is a bit of tidy up and making things run more smoothly.

Finishing Off

We saw that Aurora looks a bit crap without any cover art but we need to go online for that. Luckily the XeUnshackle payload we installed has some of DashLaunch’s functionality built into it. Part of that is an Xbox Live blocker.

So back to the guide on the console and log out of your profile.

Take the USB drive back to your PC and open it up in file explorer.

On the root of the drive you’ll find a launch.ini file. This is the settings file for XeUnshackle. You’ll need a text editor to edit it so you can use Notepad, or, if you install an app called Notepad++ you’ll get better code highlighting like you see here.

There are a number of settings you can change. Each settings has a full description of what it does and how to use it. Please only make changes to settings if you know what you’re doing.

We want to check that the Microsoft Live blocking is active so scroll down until you get to the liveblock setting. It should be on by default but if not just set it to true.

Next it would be good if our console dropped straight into Aurora when we run the Bad Update exploit. To do this look for the Paths section in the ini file and then find the Default setting. This is probably blank so it will just drop you into the normal dashboard.

We need to specify the path to our Aurora xex file. If you look at your USB drive the path will be \Apps\Aurora\Aurora.xex. Back in the ini file we also need to specify the drive so our full path will be

Usb: \Apps\Aurora\Aurora.xex

We can then save the file and take the USB drive back to our console.

Unfortunately changes to the launch.ini file will only be activated as the exploit boots up so to make those changes you will need to reboot the console and rerun Bad Update.

However, if like me your liveblock was already turned on the only thing we’re missing is having Aurora as the default dashboard. We are actually safe to go online and download our cover art.

So log back into your Bad Upodate account and use the guide button to get to the console settings. This guide trick will also work in Aurora to get you back out to the main dashboard. From there we can go to the Network settings and reconnect to our WiFi or just plug in an Ethernet cable.

If we now go back to XeXMenu and launch Aurora we should start to see our cover art downloading. And you’ve now got a proper Dashboard.

Conclusion

Hopefully you’ve now got a fully working Bad Update system. As you’ve seen this does work and if you’re on a non hard moddable console this is your only option. If you do have the option to use an RGH mod I would still recommend that route as the console will just boot straight into the modded state without any delays.

With that said the Bad Update mod will let you use all of the most important features of a modded console including playing games from backups and running emulators. In this video we’re really just started to explore what’s possible. Keep you eye open for more Bad Update tutorials over the coming weeks.