Ithian

Let me start this article by saying this comes more as a personal warning to a community I am quite fond of, and none of this is taken from any official announcement. This is an article based on my personal experience and conjecture, and nothing more.

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The History
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As of this writing it has been just over 7 months since the release of the firmware 4.2 update. In this update many anti-homebrew measures were taken. Amongst them: an update for the boot2 sector of the drive which incidentally left many modified and unmodified consoles bricked, an until-recently irreparable 003 brick for our friends with region-changed Korean consoles, useless stub IOS in place of all the spots we use to run Waninkoko's/Hermes' cIOS and Bootmii/IOS, region-free gaming for consoles with modchips, and others.

We've seen new anti-pirating measures implemented into individual games cause a near uproar within the community. One such game was New Super Mario Bros. Wii. NSMB implemented a new BCA check which, when run with an unpatched backup (or an unpatched cIOS) caused the game to freeze at random intervals.

In the past we've also seen progressive steps towards blocking homebrew. With 3.4 came a significant attempt at blocking the original version of the Twilight Hack, and 4.0 (3.5 for Korean users) saw its complete demise.

Since its release in 2006, the Wii console has never gone longer than 4 months without a firmware update. As mentioned above, it has now been just over 7 months since 4.2 was released.

It's not a huge leap then to assume that the Wii console's next big firmware update is on the horizon, and with it will probably come new anti-homebrew measures. Suggestions have ranged from another boot2 update to disabling the SD/USB ports outright (a ridiculous notion). One interesting find was by bushing at hackmii.com, from which some have insinuated we could see anti-pirate checks implemented into game discs (similar to Rugby League 3, but more thorough).

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The Point
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Don't Update!

We have two big releases coming up this month: The Black Wii Console is being released to the US on May 9th, and SMG2 is coming out on the 23rd (which will probably be host to another set of issues we'll have to deal with). While it's possible, and some would suggest likely, we may see a firmware update which coincides with these releases, nothing has been officially announced.

When the time does come I'm sure we'll have some sort of warning or another around the site, but until then my point here is to keep the community aware that another update may be around the corner, and to be ready for it.

Here are a couple options you can choose to prevent your console from accidentally updating:

- Install Priiloader and block online updates.
This is a step we encourage all of the people following our softmod guides to do, and thanks to our own dogeggs every 3.2 and 4.x console now has the potential to accomplish this. There's very little (see: nearly 0%) risk to the system when the instructions are followed correctly, and Priiloader is practically invisible on your system under normal use.

Here are the threads we offer with information on Priiloader:
Add Priiloader to 4.1U or 4.1E or 4.2U or 4.2E
Block Online updates for 3.2 / 4.1 / 4.0
Easy way to access Priiloader
Everything You Need To Know About Preloader
Install latest Priiloader 0.3b R48 (0.4 rev78)

- Turn off Wiiconnect24.
Only a couple channels use this feature, along with the multiplayer/online elements of certain games. It has also been known to overheat many consoles, causing failed graphic chips. Turn it off when you're not using it: No harm, no foul.

These are only a couple options you can choose, another off the top of my head is utilizing an app called Startpatch (for blocking online updates on 4.2 only) or disabling your router's access to the URL's accessed by the console for updates (a more extreme measure).

The point is: Keep your consoles safe, healthy, and functioning! And that's all I've got to say about that.

Submitted from: http://www.wiihacks.com/wiihacks-mem...-if-there.html