Calling all Wii owners: Need much help with Wii update info!

[Skykid]

I'm a bit out of the loop on this, was hoping anyone with a Wii could give me a hand. I haven't updated my Wii in absolutely ages because I was worried about losing the region free capability of the Homebrew Channel. I have a USA Wii console and I'm currently on version 3.1U

Does anyone know, if I update the Wii now, will it jump right to update 4.2 (the latest one) or will it ask me to update sequentially through each version released (pretty unlikely eh?)

Basically I've a bit of a problem because it won't allow me to access the shop channel unless I update, and I have a load of stored credit in there.

But with Sin & Punishment 2 winging it's way to me shortly, I'll be damned if I'm going to do anything to jeopardise the region free capability.

Any help or tips would be much appreciated!

[t0yrobo]

I'm not sure about running region free, but you can run bannerbomb on a 4.2 with no problem.

[Jockel]

there are some "alternative" updaters for the HBC that allow you to update the channels and features, while still retaining the region free ability.

[sfried]

Aren't there new versions of bootmii? Also, some people informed me that it's actually more convinient to update straight to 4.2 and just run the booters from there.

[Skykid]

So there's no sequential update - if I hit update it's going to jump me straight from 3.1U to 4.2?

Reason I ask is because I've heard both 4.0 and 4.1 are safe for the homebrew channel - but 4.2 just destroys the twilight hack.

But there's a way to update and retain the functionality? Do tell! Is it massively tricky?

[Jockel]

Try this:
http://wiibrew.org/wiki/WiiSCU

[Skykid]

Try this:
http://wiibrew.org/wiki/WiiSCU

Cheers man, didn't think to look wiki's way for this sort of thing.