Welcome to GAF's Wii Homebrew Tutorial
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Welcome to the tutorial and FAQ

For a good starting page to work out what you need, or if you are clueless, really dumb and/or don't know what you want to do with homebrew, click here

WII U INFO: It appears the Wii U Transfer process is perfectly safe. It will simply ignore and not transfer your installed homebrew applications.

MAJOR UPDATE: GCN games now installable and playable via DIOS MIOS.

NOTE: For those just wanting to play Xenoblade Chronicles on a US console, read through this page to find all you need to know.

Bookmark or start watching our What's New page which details the major additions to the site.

This site provides a very simple tutorial to perform the following actions on your Wii:

  • Keep your homebrew apps up to date via the What's New page to know what's changed.
  • Install the Homebrew Channel to run Homebrew.
  • Install BootMii and make backups of your Wii.
  • Install a Region Free application to allow running import discs.
  • Learn more about what Custom IOSes are on the IOSes Explained page.
  • Install IOS236 to make installation of Custom IOSes easier.
  • Install a Custom IOS, d2x and optionally Hermes' IOS222/223 to allow you to use a USB Loader.
  • Use GParted to partition and format your drive for use with USB Loaders.
  • Install a USB Loader to play Wii games from a USB drive, saving load times and eliminating disc switching.
  • Install [[[DIOS MIOS]] to play GCN games from a USB drive, saving load times and eliminating disc switching.
  • Install a Forwarder channel for USB Loader.
  • Configure the options of Configurable USB Loader the way you want it.
  • How to do the alternative .dol method to play certain games that don't work normally with USB Loader.
  • How to perform a WBFS to FAT Transfer to make best use out of the new FAT loading feature of Configurable USB Loader.
  • Install Homebrew Browser to find other homebrew titles easily.
  • Use FTPii to remotely connect to your Wii from your computer, in order to access your Wii's SD card (and optionally, a FAT32 partition of your Wii's HDD) in the laziest possible fashion.
  • How to update your Wii Shop without updating the firmware.
  • Upgrade to boot2v4 and firmware version 4.2 without risking the irrecoverable brick that the official update might cause.
  • How to Avoid Disc Updates in games such as NSMB Wii to avoid the irrecoverable brick they might cause.
  • Check the Upgrade FAQ to find the latest information about upgrading your Wii.

This tutorial is suitable for all Wiis on firmware update 4.3 or less, which is all known Wiis at this time. This includes:

  • Firmware versions up to and including 4.3.
  • LU64/65 Wiis and the equivalent models in other regions.
  • Wiis from all major regions.
  • The 25th Anniversary Red Wiis.

The only Wiis that cannot use homebrew using the techniques in this tutorial are:

  • Wiis bricked by previous attempts to install homebrew

Again, for a good starting page to work out what you need, or if you are clueless, really dumb and/or don't know what you want to do with homebrew, click here

What you will not find out how to do here:

  • Anything to do with piracy
  • Anything to do with WAD installs of games/apps
  • Anything to do with hardware modifications to the Wii system, discs or media
  • Anything dangerous to your Wii (System downgrades, region changing etc.)

Basically, it should provide a constantly updated idiot's guide to the best stuff your Wii has to offer. It won't be a list of all homebrew out there, there are other Wikis for that, but it will hopefully provide you with all the basics.

If you want to contribute, PM Clipper on GAF.

If you want more information or have a question about a particular topic within this tutorial, use the discuss link at the bottom of the relevant page. If you have a topic you wish to be added to the tutorial which is not yet covered, please use the discuss link at the base of this Welcome page.

Most of the information contained in this tutorial has already been discussed in this thread on GAF already. You can also use that thread to make comments and/or requests for this tutorial.

Disclaimer

Any actions you perform via this tutorial are performed at your own risk. Every attempt has been made to ensure the instructions provided here are safe and correct, although circumstances may have changed since writing of various parts of this tutorial. If you do not follow the instructions, there is a small chance you will brick your Wii, making it unplayable. The authors of this site did not create the files that are linked to on other sites and are not responsible for their content in any way. Performing any of the steps here may void your warranty.

tl;dr? Just click here.

Unless otherwise stated, the content of this page is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License