How to Debrand and Convert HTC 10 RUU to WWE Version

HTC 10 RUU firmware users may for some reason or another wish to convert to the WWE (World-Wide English) version of HTC software. The most notable benefit is that WWE updates are official, unbranded updates, typically released first to the worldwide market, because they are unbranded (not tied to any carrier). Whereas RUU firmwares are officially signed for specific devices, including carrier-locked HTC 10s, which delays their availability to download. Thus, if you want the latest HTC 10 updates as soon as they’re released, rather than waiting for a branded-specific OTA update, it’s worth considering debranding your HTC 10 and converting from RUU to WWE.

In this guide I have provided two separate methods for achieving the same thing – the first method is by restoring a nandroid backup provided in this guide via TWRP. The second method is by flashing an RUU.zip file. Both methods achieve the same result, and are nearly identical in procedure, it is simply different files we will be flashing.

Required Downloads:

• TWRP
• SunShine app
• Nandroid backup used in this guide
• 2.41.401.3 No-Wipe Firmware
• 2.41.401.3 Firmware (stock, signed): AFH | Dropbox
• 2.41.401.3 Recovery: AFH | Dropbox
• ADB – see Appual’s guide “How to Install ADB on Windows“

How to De-brand/convert HTC 10 RUU to WWE using a Nandroid backup

1. The first step is to unlock your bootloader via the official HTC Developer’s website. On your device, go to Settings > About > tap ‘Build Number’ 7 times until Developer Options have been unlocked.
2. Go to Settings > Developer Options > enable OEM Unlock and USB Debugging.
3. Now go to HTC Developers and follow their instructions for unlocking your device.
4. Once your device’s bootloader has been unlocked, we need to flash TWRP Custom Recovery. This is done via the ADB terminal, so connect your device to your PC via USB.
5. Navigate to your main ADB folder on your computer, hold Shift + Right click, and choose “Open a command window here”.
6. Once the ADB command prompt opens, type into the terminal: adb reboot download
7. Your device will reboot into Download Mode, while maintaining a connection to the ADB terminal. So now type: htc_fastboot flash recovery nameoftwrp.zip (replace nameoftwrp.zip with the actual file name of the TWRP .zip you download.)
8. Now we need to reboot into Recovery Mode. On the HTC 10, this is achieved via shutting off your HTC 10, then holding Power + Volume Down together, until you’re brought to an options menu.
9. Use the volume keys to select ‘Reboot to Bootloader’, and Power to select. Then choose ‘Boot to Recovery’ and confirm. Once an exclamation point is displayed, hold down the power button, then press and release the Volume Up key. This will take you into TWRP Recovery.
10. At this stage, TWRP Recovery may request to perform changes to the /system – do not allow, load /system as Read-Only.
11. From the TWRP main menu, go to Backup and create a backup of your Boot and System Image. Do not backup the System, only the System Image as stated.
12. Once TWRP has finished completing the backup process, redo the steps to boot into TWRP, but this time, allow TWRP to make changes to the /system partition.
13. Now from the main TWRP menu, go to Install > SD Card > choose the SuperSU .zip file, and swipe to confirm flashing. Do not interfere with the process, just let the flashing do its thing, even if it takes a while.
14. Once the flashing of SuperSU is completed, perform a full reboot of your device, and wait for it to load completely into the Android system. This may take between 5 to 15 minutes, so just be patient.
15. Go into Settings > Security > enable ‘Unknown Sources’.
16. Now navigate to your SD card using a file explorer, and find the Sunshine .APK you transferred earlier. Tap to install it. Sunshine app will run a few tests, just let it finish, and when it achieves a license, choose S-OFF / Locked when prompted and let it finish the job.
17.  Now we’re ready to convert to the WWE ROM. So unzip the Nandroid backup provided in the Download links above, and copy it to the following path on your SD card: TWRP/Backup/SerialNo/Nameofbackup
18.  Reboot into TWRP recovery, and go to Restore > choose the Nandroid backup you copied above.
19. When its done restoring the backup, go to TWRP’s main menu > Wipe > Format Data
20. Now we’re going to convert the firmware. So reboot your HTC 10 into Download Mode, and while connected to the ADB terminal, type: htc_fastboot getvar all
21. Write down your original CID and MID, because we’re going to change them.
22. To convert the CID to WWE, you will type into ADB: htc_fastboot oem writecid HTC__001
23. And to convert the MID, you will type into ADB: htc_fastboot oem writemid 2PS620000
24. Now you’re going to flash the No-Wipe firmware from the download links above, so copy the .zip file to your main ADB directory, and type into ADB: htc_fastboot flash zip nameoffirmeware.zip
    Please note this has to be done twice to complete, and the full firmware will be flashed, thus TWRP will be replaced with stock recovery.
25. Now flash the stock signed firmware from the download links above, doing the same exact method you just did for the no-wipe firmware.
26. At this stage, we need to reset the device’s verity flag, so type into ADB: htc_fastboot erase devinfo
27. And because flashing those firmwares put us back to stock recovery, we will once again flash TWRP to our device, as shown in steps 6 – 7 of this guide. However, this is only necessary if you want to root / have custom recovery.

How to De-brand/convert HTC 10 RUU to WWE using RUU.zip

Download: 2.41.401.4 RUU.zip

1. The first step is to unlock your bootloader via the official HTC Developer’s website. On your device, go to Settings > About > tap ‘Build Number’ 7 times until Developer Options have been unlocked.
2. Go to Settings > Developer Options > enable OEM Unlock and USB Debugging.
3. Now go to HTC Developers and follow their instructions for unlocking your device.
4. Once your device’s bootloader has been unlocked, we need to flash TWRP Custom Recovery. This is done via the ADB terminal, so connect your device to your PC via USB.
5. Navigate to your main ADB folder on your computer, hold Shift + Right click, and choose “Open a command window here”.
6. Once the ADB command prompt opens, type into the terminal: adb reboot download
7. Your device will reboot into Download Mode, while maintaining a connection to the ADB terminal. So now type: htc_fastboot flash recovery nameoftwrp.zip (replace nameoftwrp.zip with the actual file name of the TWRP .zip you download.)
8. Now we need to reboot into Recovery Mode. On the HTC 10, this is achieved via shutting off your HTC 10, then holding Power + Volume Down together, until you’re brought to an options menu.
9. Use the volume keys to select ‘Reboot to Bootloader’, and Power to select. Then choose ‘Boot to Recovery’ and confirm. Once an exclamation point is displayed, hold down the power button, then press and release the Volume Up key. This will take you into TWRP Recovery.
10. At this stage, TWRP Recovery may request to perform changes to the /system – do not allow, load /system as Read-Only.
11. From the TWRP main menu, go to Backup and create a backup of your Boot and System Image. Do not backup the System, only the System Image as stated.
12. Once TWRP has finished completing the backup process, redo the steps to boot into TWRP, but this time, allow TWRP to make changes to the /system partition.
13. Now from the main TWRP menu, go to Install > SD Card > choose the SuperSU .zip file, and swipe to confirm flashing. Do not interfere with the process, just let the flashing do its thing, even if it takes a while.
14. Once the flashing of SuperSU is completed, perform a full reboot of your device, and wait for it to load completely into the Android system. This may take between 5 to 15 minutes, so just be patient.
15. Go into Settings > Security > enable ‘Unknown Sources’.
16. Now navigate to your SD card using a file explorer, and find the Sunshine .APK you transferred earlier. Tap to install it. Sunshine app will run a few tests, just let it finish, and when it achieves a license, choose S-OFF / Locked when prompted and let it finish the job.
17.  Now we’re ready to convert to the WWE ROM. So unzip the Nandroid backup provided in the Download links above, and copy it to the following path on your SD card: TWRP/Backup/SerialNo/Nameofbackup
18.  Reboot into TWRP recovery, and go to Restore > choose the Nandroid backup you copied above.
19. When its done restoring the backup, go to TWRP’s main menu > Wipe > Format Data
20. Now we’re going to convert the firmware. So reboot your HTC 10 into Download Mode, and while connected to the ADB terminal, type: htc_fastboot getvar all
21. Write down your original CID and MID, because we’re going to change them.
22. To convert the CID to WWE, you will type into ADB: htc_fastboot oem writecid HTC__001
23. And to convert the MID, you will type into ADB: htc_fastboot oem writemid 2PS620000
24. Now, rename the RUU.ZIP provided above to 2PS6IMG.zip, and copy it to the root directory of your SD card.
25. Reboot into download mode, and press the Power button to confirm flashing the .zip file.
26. Next you will flash the OTA Update via the built-in OTA Update functionality, so just accept it, and finally, re-flash TWRP only if you wish to have custom recovery and re-root your device with SuperSU.

A List of Common RUU Errors:

• 07 RU_CID_FAIL: CID in android-info.txt does not match your phone’s CID
• 10 RU_MODELID_FAIL: MID in android-info.txt does not match your phone’s MID
• 12 SIGNATURE FAIL: phone expects an HTC signature and can’t find one; or found a wrong one
• 22 RU_HEADER_ERROR: something wrong with your zip; check md5 of download
• 23 PARSING IMAGE FAIL: something wrong with the image within the zip
• 24 ANDROID-INFO FAIL: something wrong with android-info.txt within the zip
• 32 HEADER ERROR: the zip couldn’t be read and unzipped properly; seems same as 22.
• 33 NOT KNOWN YET: might indicate hardware failure.
• 35 FAILED (remote: 35 RU_PARTITION_NOT_SUPPORT <PartitionName>): means you can’t flash an image in download mode, as it has to be done in bootloader mode.
• 41 WRONG MODEL ID: means the RUU is menat for a different device
• 42 WRONG CUSTOMER ID: means you got to swap CID first
• 90 PRE-UPDATE FAIL: means it only flashed aboot and you have to run the process again immediately to flash all other partitions. The htc_fastboot.exe now auto-reboots on Error 90!
• 99 UNKNOWN: usually indicates you are S-ON, but sometimes also recognizes other Security related issues.
• 130 WRONG MODEL ID: see 41
• 155 INDICATES DIFFERENT THINGS:

1. the need to relock bootloader; if S-ON
2. the RUU cannot be executed, because the software versions of ROM, Firmware and RUU aren’t matching

• 170 CHECK USB: RUU won’t run because ADB isn’t working properly
• 171 USB ERROR: happens all the time when the RUU reboots the phone to download mode. For some reason the device is losing its connection and making a RUU flash virtually impossible . There is an incompatibility between USB 3/3.1 and Fastboot/ADB, as well as an issue with Windows Device Detection on the newer Windows 10 builds.

The post How to Debrand and Convert HTC 10 RUU to WWE Version appeared first on Appuals.com.