Xbox:UnleashX

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UnleashX is a popular dashboard which was introduced late in the initial years of the Xbox scene. It is flexible and user friendly. Its extra features include a text editor, screensaver, FTP client/server, game save browser and downloader, a formatting menu, and support for game/application preview images or videos. Note that this dashboard does not provide a built in trainer menu, and therefore you will need to use the Xored Trainer Launcher.

The last official version was 0.39.0528A Build 584.

UnleashX is highly skinnable, and can take on many different appearances.

Default Skin
"Original Green" Skin
"Blue Shapes" Skin
Rocky5 Skin

Default Menu

The layout of everything will vary based on your chosen skin. These are the defaults.

Launch DVD

Launches the DVD that is in the system. If the "Tray" text in the top right corner reads as empty, no disc is detected.

Games

Detects executable (XBE) files inside of E:\Games, F:\Games, and G:\Games and lists them. If you place a rip of a game, such as Halo 2 inside one of these directories, you can launch it here.

Applications

Detects executable (XBE) files inside of E:\Apps, F:\Apps, and G:\Apps and lists them. If you place applications such as DVD2Xbox inside of one of these directories, you can launch it here.

Emulators

Detects executable (XBE) files inside of E:\Emulators, F:\Emulators, and G:\Emulators and lists them. If you place emulators such as Surreal64 inside of one of these directories, you can launch it here.

System

Settings

Opens UnleashX settings. Here you can configure your video settings and enable the F or G drive if it is disabled. The version number is displayed on the top line under System Settings.

Game Saves Manager

Opens the Xbox game save manager. This is the same as the one on the Microsoft dashboard. In previous versions of UnleashX, you were able to download game saves onto your Xbox from here.

Misc

  • Start/Stop/Reset FTP: Mainly used if you don't want FTP on at all times.
  • Reset Network: If you have changed your network settings, you will need to select this for your Xbox to take them into effect.
  • Open or close your DVD drive: To be used if your Eject button stops working.
  • Copy Game Disc: UnleashX will rip the game and store it in F:\Games\[game name]\, which will be playable from the Games menu on the main menu. It is not recommended to use this, as Xbox:DVD2Xbox is a better alternative, which patches games and circumvents extra security added in some games.

Format Menu

This menu will allow you to format your drives. The default password is "Xbox" with a capital X in front. This will wipe all data from the selected drive.

Skins

Allows you to choose a different skin for your dashboard. You can add more skins by placing them in C:\Skins\ or E:\Skins\. Sometimes it will revert your skin on reboot, in this case make sure to double-tap A when selecting the skin, and to press A hard when saving changes.

You can also download skins here from 2 servers that UnleashX provides. Skins are available to download from the Xbox-Skins.net server. There is currently no available server for AllXboxSkins.com.

File Manager

Allows you to move, copy, and rename files on your Xbox. It can also browser and extract ZIP/RAR files.

Controls:

  • LT/RT: Switch between left or right window.
  • A: Open the highlighted folder, edit file (text files), or execute file (XBE).
  • B: Go back up a folder.
  • X: Select file(s)
  • White/Start: Options to copy, move, or rename files.
    • If an XBE is selected, you can rename its XBE Title which is the displayed title in the Games list.
    • Back: Exit to dashboard.

MS Dashboard

Boots the Microsoft Dashboard.

Restart / Shutdown

Soft restarts or shuts down your Xbox.


Modifying the Menu

You can add, remove, or move menu options by modifying the Config.xml located in the dashboard installation directory. The directory structure is pretty self explanatory, and you can add folders manually in any spot in the hierarchy. Below is an example to make a folder called "Homebrew Games" in the Games directory which contains the games inside the folder G:\HOMEBREW\\. 

   <List Text="Games" Sort="On" Auto="On" DelayLoad="True">
       <List Text="Homebrew Games" Sort="On" Auto="On">
               <Path>G:\HOMEBREW</Path>
       </List>
       ...
   </List>

RSS Feed

The RSS feed feature in UnleashX is not particularly polished or compatible. It originally pointed to an Xbox-Scene news RSS feed by default, but this feed is no longer active. Reuters RSS feeds did work with it, but those were taken offline in 2020.

It seems that some of the additional formatting in newer RSS feeds throws off the XML engine in UnleashX. A simple RSS format will work with UnleashX: 

   <rss><channel>
       <item><title>The Title From The RSS Feed</item></title>
       <item><title>Another Title From The RSS Feed</item></title>
       ...
   </channel></rss>

If you know how to set up a server, it should be pretty straightforward to set up an endpoint that filters a target RSS feed into the correct format. One note though -- UnleashX limits the length of its RSS feed items to 100 characters. Your server should probably filter out items longer than 100 characters, unfortunately.

The URL of the RSS feed is defined in the config.xml file. You can define multiple feeds, but only non-continuous mode will show the content from all feeds (continuous mode only shows the first feed). The RSS feed URL does not need 'www', although subdomains are supported. Numerical IP addresses will also work. The endpoint must be on port 80; UnleashX doesn't support getting the RSS feed from another port; HTTPS won't work either. For example: 

   <Newsfeed Enable="True" Interval="5" Continuous="Yes" Separator=" | ">
       <URL>luelinks.tk/rssFark</URL>
   </Newsfeed>

Note that this feed should work. Another one that will work, pointing to BBC World News, is: 

   <URL>luelinks.tk/rssBBC</URL>

This RSS feed shows stats and active games for Insignia, compatible with UnleashX: 

   <URL>www.ogxbox.org/rss/insignia.xml</URL>

The "Continuous" flag defines whether the RSS feed will scroll along the bottom of the screen in "ticker" style, or if the item titles will display one at a time.

If you're in continuous mode, only the first RSS feed listed under <Newsfeed> config.xml will be displayed; it will start over when the content runs out. UnleashX will still retrieve and cache content for your other feeds; it just won't be displayed. It is advisable to put spaces to the left and right of your "Separator" character, or else all the text will flow together. The "Interval" has no effect in continuous mode.

If you're not in continuous mode, the Interval determines how often it will show a new title on the screen. The default Interval of 40 seconds is quite a long time to read 100 characters of text; something like 5-10 seconds might be more appropriate here. In non-continuous mode, UnleashX will display information for all your feeds listed in config.xml.

UnleashX will cache the latest contents from the RSS feed, and put them in the folder E:\UDATA\9e115330\1BD63F897543 and name the file based on the feed address. If the feed was asdf.com/asdfRSS.xml, the filename would be asdfRSS.xml. You could edit this file as plaintext, and put an "artificial" RSS feed in UnleashX if you wanted to. For example, if you had UnleashX set up as a kiosk, you could use a fake RSS feed to display instructions on the screen. Remember that there's a 100 character limit per item!

If you have more than one RSS feed, UnleashX seems to retrieve and cache these within a minute after startup. At startup, UnleashX only immediately retrieves the first feed.

One note about caching -- the RSS feed will not be updated with the latest content until UnleashX restarts (soft reset ok). UnleashX will show cached content, or no content at first if it's a new feed. So, when you add an RSS feed, be sure to restart UnleashX twice after you edit and save config.xml, in order to test the feed.

If your skin doesn't include an area for the RSS feed, you can add it to your skin.xml, in the <Main> section: 

   <Text Left="0" Top="394" Width="640" Align="Left" Color="0xA096c1cf" Source="$Newsfeed$"></Text>

The RSS feed scrolls based on the text scrolling speed in Settings > System > Font > Scroll Speed. A lower number means the text will scroll faster. A scroll speed of 40 is default; 10 is decently fast.

Text Information

Like in the above RSS feed paragraph, UnleashX can display a wide range of other text based messages, eg. time and date, HDD partition capacities, console temperatures, IP and DNS settings and so much more.

In the <Main> section as mentioned above you can place a new entry to your skin.xml like so. 

<Text Left="10" Top="444" Align="Left" Color="0xFF7171FF" Source="F_FreeMB"></Text>

This will add text to the bottom left side of your screen showing you how much free space in MB is left on your F partition.

The Source is the one we are really interested in though. Replacing this will show you different information about your console.

List of Sources

Please note this list is far from complete, These are just ones I can find and verify.

Examples are shown unformatted and as displayed when using the source as is. If you would like to format the text from the source, see the section below this one.

Source Example Info
C_FreeMB C: 322.66 MB free Shows free space left on your C partition in MB (Megabytes)
E_FreeMB E: 3,432.45 MB free Same as the above but for the E partition
F_FreeMB F: 47,303.00 MB free Same as the above but for the F partation
G_FreeMB G: 101,328.31 MB free Same as the above but for the G partition. However G drive has to be enable in settings to show this info.
C_Free C: 338,329,600 free Shows free space left on your C partition in Bytes
E_Free Same as the above but for your E partition
F_Free
G_Free
C_PFree C: 64% free Shows used space on your C partition in percentage
E_PFree Same as above, but for the E partition
F_PFree Same as above, but for the F partition
G_PFree Same as above, but for the G partition
C_TotalMB C: 499.92 MB Show the total volume size of the C partition in MB
E_TotalMB
F_TotalMB
G_TotalMB
C_Total C: 524,206,080 Shows the total volume size of the C partition in Bytes
E_Total
F_Total
G_Total
DVDModel DVD Model: PHILIPS J5 3235C Shows the model of the DVD drive installed into your xbox.
DVDTitle Halo 2 Shows the Title (uni) of D:\default.xbe
DVDType Game Shows info about the type of DVD media in the disk drive, Xbox game, Music CD, DVD movie, etc.
Tray Game Shows the current status of the DVD tray, Opening, Closing, Checking.

This source also displays the DVD type after the media has been checked. Making the DVDType source redundant.

Time Time: 11:37:17 AM Shows the current time in 12 or 24 hours depending on UnleashX settings. Formatted as HH:MM:SS
Date Date: 12/27/2022 Shows the current date. Formatted as MM/DD/YYYY
DateTime Date: 12/27/2022 11:37:17 AM Shows the above Time and date formatted into one string
NickName Nickname: consolemods.org Shows the current Nickname of the console. Can be set with tools like xToolBox
CPUTemp CPU: 46.00 C Displays the current temperature of your CPU in Celsius or Fahrenheit depending on your UnleashX system settings.
CPUTempC Displays the current temperature of your CPU in Celsius regardless of your UnleashX system settings.
CPUTempF Displays the current temperature of your CPU in Fahrenheit regardless of your UnleashX system settings.
MBTemp Displays the current temperature of your Motherboard in Celsius or Fahrenheit depending on your UnleashX system settings.
MBTempC M/B: 39.00 C Displays the current temperature of your Motherboard in Celsius regardless of your UnleashX system settings.
MBTempF Displays the current temperature of your Motherboard in Fahrenheit regardless of your UnleashX system settings.
HDTemp HDD Temp: 27.00 C Displays the current temperature of your hard drive in Celsius or Fahrenheit depending on your UnleashX system settings.
HDTempC Displays the current temperature of your hard drive in Celsius regardless of your UnleashX system settings.
HDTempF Displays the current temperature of your hard drive in Fahrenheit regardless of your UnleashX system settings.
FanSpeed Fan: 1.00x Displays the current fan speed in multiple of the base original speed.
SongName Displays the currently playing song title in the music player
SongTrack Displays the current "album" title of the song playing in the music player

I use quotes as this info is not logical. "custom soundtrack" is used for the background music is the default name until you rename it.

SongTime 00:31 The amount of time elapsed playing the current song in the music player
SongLength 04:21 The total run time of the currently playing song in the music player.
SongBitRate 128 kbps The bitrate of the file currently being played in the music player
SongFrequency 44.1 KHz The sampling frequency of the file currently being played in the music player
SongChannel Stereo The audio channel used for the file currently being played in the music player. Mono, Stereo, Surround, etc.
VideoMode PAL-60 A truncated version of the video standard text in the system info panel
IP The current IP of your xbox, DNS or Static settings are shown and reflected here.
Subnet Subnet: 255.255.255.0 The current Subnet mask of your xbox, DNS or Static settings are shown and reflected here.
Gateway The current Gateway your xbox is connected to (Typically the IP of your router), DNS or Static settings are shown and reflected here.
DNS1 Subnet: 46.101.64.175 Displays the first DNS setting in your UnleashX settings
DNS2 Subnet: 1.1.1.1 Displays the secend DNS setting in your UnleashX settings
MAC MAC: 00-0d-xx-xx-xx-xx Displays the MAC address if your xbox's network card (censored for example)
LinkStatus 100 Mbps/full Duplex Displays the network connection type between your xbox and your network switch.
AppVersion UnleashX Version 0.39.0528A Displays the current build version of your UnleashX dashboard.
SkinAuthor Displays the <Information><Author> tag from the currently selected Skin.xml
SkinVersion Displays the <Information><Version> tag from the currently selected Skin.xml
Version Xbox V1.4 Displays the motherboard revision of your xbox (Unsure how or based on what info UnleashX is generating this ver info with)
HDDStatus HDD Statis: Not Locked Displays weather or not your HDD is set to boot locked or unloaded. A Not locked HDD can be easily read on a computer with software.
HDDSerial HDD Serial No.: 4LS3MTRW FW: 3.AAJ Displays the HDD serial number. Some HDDs also have the firmware version in the serial number.
HDDModel HDD Model: ST3160212A Displays the model number of your HDD.
HDDKey HDD Key: 11111111111111 Displays the currently used locking key for your hard drive
SerialNum Serial No.: 000000000000 Displays the serial number of your xbox
NumClient Users: 0 Displays the currently amount of logged in FTP users.
Newsfeed Displays the <item>s in an RSS feed, See the above RSS Feed section for more info
NewsSource Displays the <title> of an RSS feed, See the above RSS Feed section for more info
ChipID Protected The type of modchip or TSOP being used. Eg. SST49LF020. If unknown, it defaults to "Protected"
BIOSMD5 BIOS MD5: 0xee8a963c225e9098... Displays the MD5 checksum of your BIOS (example string was shortened)
BIOSVersion BIOS: 1.0.5838.1 Displays the kernel version of your current BIOS

Note, this does not display info like "EvoX M8" only what kernel said bios was built on.

LaunchMode Dahsboard How apps will be launched by UnleashX
Thread Threads: 4 Number of worker threads running in the background.
TotalMemory 65536 KB
FreeMemory 26988 KB

Custom formatting

You can apply custom formatting to all of the above sources if you don't like their default formatting. By surrounding the source name with $ you can now print just the info of the string without its default formatting.

For example, the default formatting for DNS1, DNS2 and the Subnet all use the same Subnet: format, what if we wanted to display which DNS setting it was, or only wanted to show the first DNS setting. 

<Text Left="10" Top="444" Align="Left" Color="0xFF7171FF" Source="DNS: $DNS1$"></Text>

This will now display DNS: 46.101.64.175 instead of Subnet: 46.101.64.175

You can also add text before and after the $DNS1$ if you like as well.

Currently missing

In theory we should have sources for all the information displayed in the System Info page. (press Y on the home screen of UnleashX)

So we are missing tags for X, Y, Z and DVD drives as Z_FreeMB or DVD_FreeMB do not seem to work. But there are a lot of other info in this screen we don't have sources for.

There are also sources we have that are not in this info screen, like the HDD temp source. So there might be other sources we can use that are not displayed in the info panel.

Custom Splash

You can add a splash screen for UnleashX, and skins can provide their own splash, but occasionally it will get overwritten automatically, with an image found in the UnleashX default.xbe. I'm not sure what causes this, but you can add a config.xml menu item to reset the splash screen:

Be sure to edit Arg1 to point to the location of your custom splash: 

   <Item Action="copy" Arg1="E:\Skins\Splash.jpg" Arg2="E:\UDATA\9e115330\0064122817A8\Splash.jpg">Reset Splash</Item>

This image must be a JPG. Since the splash is displayed in 4:3 480p, it should be sized 720x480. Otherwise, there will be jaggy resizing artifacts on your splash. This means your image will still be stretched when it displays at 16:9 res, but it will look better than with the resizing artifacts. One approach is to take a larger image, then horizontally scale the contents by 0.844x, but still resulting in a 720x480 image. When the image is horizontally stretched by your screen, it will now appear to be the correct scale.

Screensaver Images

The screensaver supports BMP, JPG, and PNG images, but it has issues with images that are in anything other than 32-bit PNG format. (that is, PNG with an alpha channel). Otherwise, it seems to put the image through some kind of conversion that results in jaggies. (Thanks to Rocky5 for this information.) One way of improving this is making the source image larger. The larger the image is, the less visible the artifacts are, due to downscaling. If you want higher quality images in the UnleashX screensaver, you may be better off using 1080p-sized JPGs even if your output resolution is at 720p, as these will be smaller on your disk than 720p-sized 32-bit PNG files.

Note that 720p-sized JPGs will look acceptable, but a little jaggy at 720p. 576p or 480p 32-bit PNGs are another option here.

If you do want to use 32 bit PNGs, image conversion software typically does not support adding an alpha channel to PNGs which don't already have an alpha channel. However, this can be done using the software ImageMagick. You can use this command in a loop in a batch file to process multiple images: 

   convert imageName.png -alpha on imageNameOut.png

>4096 Songs and Screensavers

UnleashX allows you to set background music, and screensaver wallpaper directories. You can't have more than 4096 files in one directory on the Xbox filesystem. While 4096 background images is a lot, you will start seeing the same ones quite a bit, eventually.

Another consideration is if you have a large number of music files in a folder, UnleashX will take additional time to start up. Around 500 music files per folder will maintain a quick startup.

If you want to have more than 500 songs at startup and/or more than 4096 wallpapers, you can try this workaround. It allows you to rotate a group of folders, by renaming all the folders.

  • Split up your songs and wallpapers into separate directories, such as F:\Pictures\Wallpaper\Group1, F:\Pictures\Wallpaper\Group2, etc.
  • Set your screensaver or startup music folder to point to the first folder in the group of folders, e.g. F:\Pictures\Wallpaper\Group1
  • Now, add this to the <Menu> section in your UnleashX config.xml file. Be sure to edit it to reflect the folders you've set up on your own Xbox hard drive! You probably want to put this as a sub-menu item of another item, like Settings, so it's not taking up space on the main menu.
       <List Text="Rotate Wallpaper" Sort="Off" Batch="True">
           <Item Action="rename" Arg1="F:\Pictures\Wallpaper\720p\Group1" Arg2="F:\Pictures\Wallpaper\720p\GroupTemp"></Item>
           <Item Action="rename" Arg1="F:\Pictures\Wallpaper\720p\Group2" Arg2="F:\Pictures\Wallpaper\720p\Group1"></Item>
           <Item Action="rename" Arg1="F:\Pictures\Wallpaper\720p\Group3" Arg2="F:\Pictures\Wallpaper\720p\Group2"></Item>
           <Item Action="rename" Arg1="F:\Pictures\Wallpaper\720p\Group4" Arg2="F:\Pictures\Wallpaper\720p\Group3"></Item>
           <Item Action="rename" Arg1="F:\Pictures\Wallpaper\720p\Group5" Arg2="F:\Pictures\Wallpaper\720p\Group4"></Item>
           <Item Action="rename" Arg1="F:\Pictures\Wallpaper\720p\Group6" Arg2="F:\Pictures\Wallpaper\720p\Group5"></Item>
           <Item Action="rename" Arg1="F:\Pictures\Wallpaper\720p\Group7" Arg2="F:\Pictures\Wallpaper\720p\Group6"></Item>
           <Item Action="rename" Arg1="F:\Pictures\Wallpaper\720p\Group8" Arg2="F:\Pictures\Wallpaper\720p\Group7"></Item>
           <Item Action="rename" Arg1="F:\Pictures\Wallpaper\720p\GroupTemp" Arg2="F:\Pictures\Wallpaper\720p\Group8"></Item>
           <item action="messagebox" arg1="Folders rotated.">Wallpaper rotated successfully.</item>
       </List>
  • It is safe to rotate your screensaver image directories while UnleashX is running, because your screensaver can't be running at the same time as you are rotating the files, and the renaming operation happens very quickly. But for music, UnleashX plays music at startup, and is accessing the music files while it is playing music. Thus, if you are playing music (as by default) when you try to rotate the music folders, the operation will fail and your folders could get mis-renamed. Note that this is only if the music folder for UnleashX was pointed at something other than the first item -- otherwise it will try to rename the first item and fail, which is safe, so it's recommended to keep UnleashX pointed at the first item that gets renamed. An additional user confirmation step is required here to make sure the user has stopped their music. Be sure to edit these folders to reflect your own Xbox hard drive.


       <List Text="Rotate Music Folders" Sort="Off" Batch="True">
       <Item Action="AskUser" Arg1="Rotate Music Folders?" Arg2="You must STOP (not pause) any playing music before starting this operation. If you are playing music from one of these folders with UnleashX right now, the operation will fail and your folders could named incorrectly, or you may have to re-transfer your music. Please make sure you STOP music playback from the UnleashX player before you continue. You can bring up the UnleashX player by pressing the white button on your controller."></Item>
       <Item Action="AskUser" Arg1="Rotate Music Folders?" Arg2="Are you sure that music has been STOPPED (not paused) from the UnleashX player? You can bring up the UnleashX player by pressing the white button on your controller."></Item>
               <Item Action="rename" Arg1="F:\Music\Keygen\KeygenMusic1" Arg2="F:\Music\Keygen\KeygenMusicTemp"></Item>
               <Item Action="rename" Arg1="F:\Music\Keygen\KeygenMusic2" Arg2="F:\Music\Keygen\KeygenMusic1"></Item>
               <Item Action="rename" Arg1="F:\Music\Keygen\KeygenMusic3" Arg2="F:\Music\Keygen\KeygenMusic2"></Item>
               <Item Action="rename" Arg1="F:\Music\Keygen\KeygenMusic4" Arg2="F:\Music\Keygen\KeygenMusic3"></Item>
               <Item Action="rename" Arg1="F:\Music\Keygen\KeygenMusic5" Arg2="F:\Music\Keygen\KeygenMusic4"></Item>
               <Item Action="rename" Arg1="F:\Music\Keygen\KeygenMusic6" Arg2="F:\Music\Keygen\KeygenMusic5"></Item>
               <Item Action="rename" Arg1="F:\Music\Keygen\KeygenMusic7" Arg2="F:\Music\Keygen\KeygenMusic6"></Item>
               <Item Action="rename" Arg1="F:\Music\Keygen\KeygenMusic8" Arg2="F:\Music\Keygen\KeygenMusic7"></Item>
               <Item Action="rename" Arg1="F:\Music\Keygen\KeygenMusicTemp" Arg2="F:\Music\Keygen\KeygenMusic8"></Item>
           <item action="messagebox" arg1="Folders rotated.">Music rotated successfully. Restart to hear new music.</item>
       </List>
  • It would be nice to automatically rotate at least the wallpaper folders and possibly the music folders at startup, but there doesn't appear to be a way to run a startup operation on UnleashX.
  • You can have other apps, like XBMC-Emustation, point to one of these directories to get their screensaver images and startup music. When you rotate the directories in UnleashX, they'll also be rotated in the other apps. While UnleashX should point to the first item in the list to block the rotation operation if music is playing, other apps can point to other items so that you get a greater variety of images and/or music per app.

FTP Server

SITE commands

  • UnleashX's FTP server supports the following custom SITE commands: REBOOT, SHUTDOWN, POWERCYCLE, TRAYCLOSE, EJECT or TRAYOPEN, FTPRESET, NETRESET
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