v0.3.7

What changed

See CHANGELOG.md for the curated entry for this version,
including which items were verified on hardware and which are still device-gated. The
auto-generated commit list follows below.

Installing

Download cinder-installer-windows-x64.exe, connect the Walkman in USB mass-storage
mode, and run it. Double-clicking opens a window; running it from a terminal gives the
same thing as text.

It does three things:

Install	Choose the optional components, stage them, flash.
Update	Reads the choices already on the player and keeps them, so a new build never silently resets a customised install.
Uninstall	Restores Sony's launch config from the backup the install made and removes Cinder's binaries. Your music, playlists and settings are untouched.

It reads what is on the player out of the device's own install log before offering
anything — whether Cinder is there, which version put it there, and whether the last
attempt succeeded, was reverted by the device's sanity gate, or never finished.

Everything the installer needs is inside the one file: the device binaries, both .UPG
packages and the component catalogue. No separate download, no WSL, no usbipd, no driver
setup, and no network connection. It sends the player's own upgrade command itself — SCSI
pass-through on Windows (so it asks for administrator), SG_IO on Linux (so it asks for
sudo). Sony's updater is no longer embedded in it.

Command line, if you prefer it:

cinder-installer --install | --update | --uninstall
cinder-installer --clean       # delete staged payload files left in the drive root
cinder-installer --check       # ask GitHub whether a newer release exists
cinder-installer -y            # no questions

Linux

cinder-installer-linux-x64 does the whole job — run it with sudo. It stages the
files and then sends the upgrade command itself: the same 12-byte vendor SCSI command
Sony's tool ends with. Root is needed because that is a raw SCSI passthrough. Without
it, the files are still staged correctly and the installer says what did not happen.

macOS

The installer stages the files but cannot finish. The upgrade command is a vendor SCSI
passthrough, and macOS only exposes those through an IOKit SCSITaskUserClient, which
the kernel refuses for an already-mounted disk. Finish from Linux or Windows; see
install.md.

The player has no update option in its own menus. This generation never had one —
the upgrade is always triggered by the host over USB.

cinder-home-install.upg and cinder-home-uninstall.upg are attached for that route
and for advanced recovery use. On Windows, the one-click executable is the recommended
path — it does the handoff for you.

Read RECOVERY.md first. This device has no public
DFU/EDL recovery path.

Verifying the download

GitHub shows its own sha256: digest beside each file in the assets list above. That is computed
by GitHub when the file is uploaded, and it proves your download matches what GitHub stores.

The sums below are a different link in the same chain: they are computed on the build runner,
before upload, so they say what was actually built. They should agree with GitHub's digests — if
they ever do not, something happened between the build and the release, and that is worth knowing.

0d3f0781fbd740ab19a6c102bcc15e0a3d33562d6e170b4c18761a136b597775  cinder-home-install.upg
5f625e06593da7a7f7fef4ef1e2fd23990e39a614440c60265e58ff0562ea648  cinder-home-uninstall.upg
228a002409e7795db70835d55bd9fd6514c2a632acc9d049ebc7bb095b21f75e  cinder-installer-linux-x64
4ce4639fcfe1ff8289f53721d2a9be4559480800e7cef17003faa4d62809296d  cinder-installer-windows-x64.exe

On Linux or macOS, save that block as SHA256SUMS next to the downloads and run:

sha256sum -c SHA256SUMS

On Windows:

Get-FileHash .\cinder-installer-windows-x64.exe -Algorithm SHA256

Every file above also has a GitHub build attestation. With the GitHub CLI
2.49 or later (older versions, including the 2.45 Ubuntu packages, do not have this command):

gh attestation verify cinder-installer-windows-x64.exe -R superwilso/Cinder

A pass means the file was built by this repository's release workflow from the tagged commit, and
is signed in a way an uploaded replacement cannot fake. The checksums say the file is intact; the
attestation says where it came from.

The installer is unsigned, so SmartScreen will warn about an unknown publisher — that
is expected for an unsigned binary and is not itself evidence of anything. Check the
hash if you want more than my word for it.

Full Changelog: v0.3.5...v0.3.7

v0.3.5

What changed

See CHANGELOG.md for the curated entry for this version,
including which items were verified on hardware and which are still device-gated. The
auto-generated commit list follows below.

Installing

Download cinder-installer-windows-x64.exe, connect the Walkman in USB mass-storage
mode, and run it. Double-clicking opens a window; running it from a terminal gives the
same thing as text.

It does three things:

Install	Choose the optional components, stage them, flash.
Update	Reads the choices already on the player and keeps them, so a new build never silently resets a customised install.
Uninstall	Restores Sony's launch config from the backup the install made and removes Cinder's binaries. Your music, playlists and settings are untouched.

It reads what is on the player out of the device's own install log before offering
anything — whether Cinder is there, which version put it there, and whether the last
attempt succeeded, was reverted by the device's sanity gate, or never finished.

Everything the installer needs is inside the one file: the device binaries, both .UPG
packages and the component catalogue. No separate download, no WSL, no usbipd, no driver
setup, and no network connection. It sends the player's own upgrade command itself — SCSI
pass-through on Windows (so it asks for administrator), SG_IO on Linux (so it asks for
sudo). Sony's updater is no longer embedded in it.

Command line, if you prefer it:

cinder-installer --install | --update | --uninstall
cinder-installer --clean       # delete staged payload files left in the drive root
cinder-installer --check       # ask GitHub whether a newer release exists
cinder-installer -y            # no questions

Linux

cinder-installer-linux-x64 does the whole job — run it with sudo. It stages the
files and then sends the upgrade command itself: the same 12-byte vendor SCSI command
Sony's tool ends with. Root is needed because that is a raw SCSI passthrough. Without
it, the files are still staged correctly and the installer says what did not happen.

macOS

The installer stages the files but cannot finish. The upgrade command is a vendor SCSI
passthrough, and macOS only exposes those through an IOKit SCSITaskUserClient, which
the kernel refuses for an already-mounted disk. Finish from Linux or Windows; see
install.md.

The player has no update option in its own menus. This generation never had one —
the upgrade is always triggered by the host over USB.

cinder-home-install.upg and cinder-home-uninstall.upg are attached for that route
and for advanced recovery use. On Windows, the one-click executable is the recommended
path — it does the handoff for you.

Read RECOVERY.md first. This device has no public
DFU/EDL recovery path.

Verifying the download

GitHub shows its own sha256: digest beside each file in the assets list above. That is computed
by GitHub when the file is uploaded, and it proves your download matches what GitHub stores.

The sums below are a different link in the same chain: they are computed on the build runner,
before upload, so they say what was actually built. They should agree with GitHub's digests — if
they ever do not, something happened between the build and the release, and that is worth knowing.

f26d8a7a050ac4442f5c42c7c0e144eca7c52205bbb09d64a358a7d3aa509842  cinder-home-install.upg
5f625e06593da7a7f7fef4ef1e2fd23990e39a614440c60265e58ff0562ea648  cinder-home-uninstall.upg
a7ac286d93a58c9bbbc879334c70b56efea3c0633a4acd8ce6a272ce10d50045  cinder-installer-linux-x64
09cda09c6fd92c442fb2a8a15432dd6cbcc5d997ea8160ff99d9bf5e20ddde98  cinder-installer-windows-x64.exe

On Linux or macOS, save that block as SHA256SUMS next to the downloads and run:

sha256sum -c SHA256SUMS

On Windows:

Get-FileHash .\cinder-installer-windows-x64.exe -Algorithm SHA256

Every file above also has a GitHub build attestation. With the GitHub CLI:

gh attestation verify cinder-installer-windows-x64.exe -R superwilso/Cinder

A pass means the file was built by this repository's release workflow from the tagged commit, and
is signed in a way an uploaded replacement cannot fake. The checksums say the file is intact; the
attestation says where it came from.

The installer is unsigned, so SmartScreen will warn about an unknown publisher — that
is expected for an unsigned binary and is not itself evidence of anything. Check the
hash if you want more than my word for it.

What's Changed

• docs: current audit, forward plan, and a corrected skins contract by @superwilso in #11

Full Changelog: v0.3.4...v0.3.5

v0.3.4

What changed

See CHANGELOG.md for the curated entry for this version,
including which items were verified on hardware and which are still device-gated. The
auto-generated commit list follows below.

Installing

Download cinder-installer-windows-x64.exe, connect the Walkman in USB mass-storage
mode, and run it. Double-clicking opens a window; running it from a terminal gives the
same thing as text.

It does three things:

Install	Choose the optional components, stage them, flash.
Update	Reads the choices already on the player and keeps them, so a new build never silently resets a customised install.
Uninstall	Restores Sony's launch config from the backup the install made and removes Cinder's binaries. Your music, playlists and settings are untouched.

It reads what is on the player out of the device's own install log before offering
anything — whether Cinder is there, which version put it there, and whether the last
attempt succeeded, was reverted by the device's sanity gate, or never finished.

Everything the installer needs is inside the one file: the device binaries, both .UPG
packages and the component catalogue. No separate download, no WSL, no usbipd, no driver
setup, and no network connection. It sends the player's own upgrade command itself — SCSI
pass-through on Windows (so it asks for administrator), SG_IO on Linux (so it asks for
sudo). Sony's updater is no longer embedded in it.

Command line, if you prefer it:

cinder-installer --install | --update | --uninstall
cinder-installer --clean       # delete staged payload files left in the drive root
cinder-installer --check       # ask GitHub whether a newer release exists
cinder-installer -y            # no questions

Linux

cinder-installer-linux-x64 does the whole job — run it with sudo. It stages the
files and then sends the upgrade command itself: the same 12-byte vendor SCSI command
Sony's tool ends with. Root is needed because that is a raw SCSI passthrough. Without
it, the files are still staged correctly and the installer says what did not happen.

macOS

The installer stages the files but cannot finish. The upgrade command is a vendor SCSI
passthrough, and macOS only exposes those through an IOKit SCSITaskUserClient, which
the kernel refuses for an already-mounted disk. Finish from Linux or Windows; see
install.md.

The player has no update option in its own menus. This generation never had one —
the upgrade is always triggered by the host over USB.

cinder-home-install.upg and cinder-home-uninstall.upg are attached for that route
and for advanced recovery use. On Windows, the one-click executable is the recommended
path — it does the handoff for you.

Read RECOVERY.md first. This device has no public
DFU/EDL recovery path.

Verifying the download

GitHub shows its own sha256: digest beside each file in the assets list above. That is computed
by GitHub when the file is uploaded, and it proves your download matches what GitHub stores.

The sums below are a different link in the same chain: they are computed on the build runner,
before upload, so they say what was actually built. They should agree with GitHub's digests — if
they ever do not, something happened between the build and the release, and that is worth knowing.

93452add94c038a96279b2f533928f4ee38362b7cf7a681c085d7173f5e2d2e2  cinder-home-install.upg
fe9acb1510a259078163858fe5268d7e43bb3f33e0244856c197e5e585242954  cinder-home-uninstall.upg
1edaa0c92156146da836f464db4f27dbceed06bf0af7c7b8478ad7d7509143f4  cinder-installer-linux-x64
8d9d9556430666f16d54aa3d4618d247b896ac67867d82da798fe4012a756255  cinder-installer-windows-x64.exe

On Linux or macOS, save that block as SHA256SUMS next to the downloads and run:

sha256sum -c SHA256SUMS

On Windows:

Get-FileHash .\cinder-installer-windows-x64.exe -Algorithm SHA256

The installer is unsigned, so SmartScreen will warn about an unknown publisher — that
is expected for an unsigned binary and is not itself evidence of anything. Check the
hash if you want more than my word for it.

Full Changelog: v0.3.3...v0.3.4

v0.3.3

What changed

See CHANGELOG.md for the curated entry for this version,
including which items were verified on hardware and which are still device-gated. The
auto-generated commit list follows below.

Installing

Download cinder-installer-windows-x64.exe, connect the Walkman in USB mass-storage
mode, and run it. Double-clicking opens a window; running it from a terminal gives the
same thing as text.

It does three things:

Install	Choose the optional components, stage them, flash.
Update	Reads the choices already on the player and keeps them, so a new build never silently resets a customised install.
Uninstall	Restores Sony's launch config from the backup the install made and removes Cinder's binaries. Your music, playlists and settings are untouched.

It reads what is on the player out of the device's own install log before offering
anything — whether Cinder is there, which version put it there, and whether the last
attempt succeeded, was reverted by the device's sanity gate, or never finished.

Everything the installer needs is inside the one file: the device binaries, both .UPG
packages and the component catalogue. No separate download, no WSL, no usbipd, no driver
setup, and no network connection. It sends the player's own upgrade command itself — SCSI
pass-through on Windows (so it asks for administrator), SG_IO on Linux (so it asks for
sudo). Sony's updater is no longer embedded in it.

Command line, if you prefer it:

cinder-installer --install | --update | --uninstall
cinder-installer --clean       # delete staged payload files left in the drive root
cinder-installer --check       # ask GitHub whether a newer release exists
cinder-installer -y            # no questions

Linux

cinder-installer-linux-x64 does the whole job — run it with sudo. It stages the
files and then sends the upgrade command itself: the same 12-byte vendor SCSI command
Sony's tool ends with. Root is needed because that is a raw SCSI passthrough. Without
it, the files are still staged correctly and the installer says what did not happen.

macOS

The installer stages the files but cannot finish. The upgrade command is a vendor SCSI
passthrough, and macOS only exposes those through an IOKit SCSITaskUserClient, which
the kernel refuses for an already-mounted disk. Finish from Linux or Windows; see
install.md.

The player has no update option in its own menus. This generation never had one —
the upgrade is always triggered by the host over USB.

cinder-home-install.upg and cinder-home-uninstall.upg are attached for that route
and for advanced recovery use. On Windows, the one-click executable is the recommended
path — it does the handoff for you.

Read RECOVERY.md first. This device has no public
DFU/EDL recovery path.

Verifying the download

GitHub shows its own sha256: digest beside each file in the assets list above. That is computed
by GitHub when the file is uploaded, and it proves your download matches what GitHub stores.

The sums below are a different link in the same chain: they are computed on the build runner,
before upload, so they say what was actually built. They should agree with GitHub's digests — if
they ever do not, something happened between the build and the release, and that is worth knowing.

97a7a69b92dfc950835ab5f4a6a7a462c220b9790a78f74d90a5728936da8dbf  cinder-home-install.upg
fe9acb1510a259078163858fe5268d7e43bb3f33e0244856c197e5e585242954  cinder-home-uninstall.upg
ee9a080e41d09a72da598e4b5f2d23ca9d456da570c95627ff40b51c329a8a16  cinder-installer-linux-x64
f336bc27fc84375f3db58901b4e666166d1786a5b594114f1e673261a8d80704  cinder-installer-windows-x64.exe

On Linux or macOS, save that block as SHA256SUMS next to the downloads and run:

sha256sum -c SHA256SUMS

On Windows:

Get-FileHash .\cinder-installer-windows-x64.exe -Algorithm SHA256

The installer is unsigned, so SmartScreen will warn about an unknown publisher — that
is expected for an unsigned binary and is not itself evidence of anything. Check the
hash if you want more than my word for it.

Full Changelog: v0.3.2...v0.3.3

v0.3.2

What changed

See CHANGELOG.md for the curated entry for this version,
including which items were verified on hardware and which are still device-gated. The
auto-generated commit list follows below.

Installing

Download cinder-installer-windows-x64.exe, connect the Walkman in USB mass-storage
mode, and run it. Double-clicking opens a window; running it from a terminal gives the
same thing as text.

It does three things:

Install	Choose the optional components, stage them, flash.
Update	Reads the choices already on the player and keeps them, so a new build never silently resets a customised install.
Uninstall	Restores Sony's launch config from the backup the install made and removes Cinder's binaries. Your music, playlists and settings are untouched.

It reads what is on the player out of the device's own install log before offering
anything — whether Cinder is there, which version put it there, and whether the last
attempt succeeded, was reverted by the device's sanity gate, or never finished.

Everything the installer needs is inside the one file: the device binaries, both .UPG
packages and the component catalogue. No separate download, no WSL, no usbipd, no driver
setup, and no network connection. It sends the player's own upgrade command itself — SCSI
pass-through on Windows (so it asks for administrator), SG_IO on Linux (so it asks for
sudo). Sony's updater is no longer embedded in it.

Command line, if you prefer it:

cinder-installer --install | --update | --uninstall
cinder-installer --clean       # delete staged payload files left in the drive root
cinder-installer --check       # ask GitHub whether a newer release exists
cinder-installer -y            # no questions

Linux

cinder-installer-linux-x64 does the whole job — run it with sudo. It stages the
files and then sends the upgrade command itself: the same 12-byte vendor SCSI command
Sony's tool ends with. Root is needed because that is a raw SCSI passthrough. Without
it, the files are still staged correctly and the installer says what did not happen.

macOS

The installer stages the files but cannot finish. The upgrade command is a vendor SCSI
passthrough, and macOS only exposes those through an IOKit SCSITaskUserClient, which
the kernel refuses for an already-mounted disk. Finish from Linux or Windows; see
install.md.

The player has no update option in its own menus. This generation never had one —
the upgrade is always triggered by the host over USB.

cinder-home-install.upg and cinder-home-uninstall.upg are attached for that route
and for advanced recovery use. On Windows, the one-click executable is the recommended
path — it does the handoff for you.

Read RECOVERY.md first. This device has no public
DFU/EDL recovery path.

Verifying the download

GitHub shows its own sha256: digest beside each file in the assets list above. That is computed
by GitHub when the file is uploaded, and it proves your download matches what GitHub stores.

The sums below are a different link in the same chain: they are computed on the build runner,
before upload, so they say what was actually built. They should agree with GitHub's digests — if
they ever do not, something happened between the build and the release, and that is worth knowing.

97a7a69b92dfc950835ab5f4a6a7a462c220b9790a78f74d90a5728936da8dbf  cinder-home-install.upg
fe9acb1510a259078163858fe5268d7e43bb3f33e0244856c197e5e585242954  cinder-home-uninstall.upg
8b4c0375f1661ad71240cf8b53aff29a7b618a2c10135180e2ebf4faeafe0f1a  cinder-installer-linux-x64
3318751cd2287c67ac160cc4493d06cc682001a0e494b8ddb575f2b1858db14a  cinder-installer-windows-x64.exe

On Linux or macOS, save that block as SHA256SUMS next to the downloads and run:

sha256sum -c SHA256SUMS

On Windows:

Get-FileHash .\cinder-installer-windows-x64.exe -Algorithm SHA256

The installer is unsigned, so SmartScreen will warn about an unknown publisher — that
is expected for an unsigned binary and is not itself evidence of anything. Check the
hash if you want more than my word for it.

Full Changelog: v0.3.0...v0.3.2

v0.3.0

What changed

See CHANGELOG.md for the curated entry for this version,
including which items were verified on hardware and which are still device-gated. The
auto-generated commit list follows below.

Installing

Download cinder-installer-windows-x64.exe, connect the Walkman in USB mass-storage
mode, and run it. Double-clicking opens a window; running it from a terminal gives the
same thing as text.

It does three things:

Install	Choose the optional components, stage them, flash.
Update	Reads the choices already on the player and keeps them, so a new build never silently resets a customised install.
Uninstall	Restores Sony's launch config from the backup the install made and removes Cinder's binaries. Your music, playlists and settings are untouched.

It reads what is on the player out of the device's own install log before offering
anything — whether Cinder is there, which version put it there, and whether the last
attempt succeeded, was reverted by the device's sanity gate, or never finished.

Everything the installer needs is inside the one file: the device binaries, both .UPG
packages, the component catalogue and Sony's own updater. No separate download, no WSL,
no usbipd, no driver setup, and no network connection. Sony's SoftwareUpdateTool.exe
performs the USB handoff and reboots the player.

Command line, if you prefer it:

cinder-installer --install | --update | --uninstall
cinder-installer --clean       # delete staged payload files left in the drive root
cinder-installer --check       # ask GitHub whether a newer release exists
cinder-installer -y            # no questions

Linux

cinder-installer-linux-x64 does the whole job — run it with sudo. It stages the
files and then sends the upgrade command itself: the same 12-byte vendor SCSI command
Sony's tool ends with. Root is needed because that is a raw SCSI passthrough. Without
it, the files are still staged correctly and the installer says what did not happen.

macOS

The installer stages the files but cannot finish. The upgrade command is a vendor SCSI
passthrough, and macOS only exposes those through an IOKit SCSITaskUserClient, which
the kernel refuses for an already-mounted disk. Finish from Linux or Windows; see
install.md.

The player has no update option in its own menus. This generation never had one —
the upgrade is always triggered by the host over USB.

cinder-home-install.upg and cinder-home-uninstall.upg are attached for that route
and for advanced recovery use. On Windows, the one-click executable is the recommended
path — it does the handoff for you.

Read RECOVERY.md first. This device has no public
DFU/EDL recovery path.

Verifying the download

GitHub shows its own sha256: digest beside each file in the assets list above. That is computed
by GitHub when the file is uploaded, and it proves your download matches what GitHub stores.

The sums below are a different link in the same chain: they are computed on the build runner,
before upload, so they say what was actually built. They should agree with GitHub's digests — if
they ever do not, something happened between the build and the release, and that is worth knowing.

97a7a69b92dfc950835ab5f4a6a7a462c220b9790a78f74d90a5728936da8dbf  cinder-home-install.upg
fe9acb1510a259078163858fe5268d7e43bb3f33e0244856c197e5e585242954  cinder-home-uninstall.upg
ef9e96236cdf7c1700fea8ab4559d6a16432d1d565be91efcb0fbe37a438caaf  cinder-installer-linux-x64
4fc825c12455eb3ad06de7b9ccedb13b69b5b83e4b08ae8ae9fa8a97885288b6  cinder-installer-windows-x64.exe

On Linux or macOS, save that block as SHA256SUMS next to the downloads and run:

sha256sum -c SHA256SUMS

On Windows:

Get-FileHash .\cinder-installer-windows-x64.exe -Algorithm SHA256

The installer is unsigned, so SmartScreen will warn about an unknown publisher — that
is expected for an unsigned binary and is not itself evidence of anything. Check the
hash if you want more than my word for it.

Full Changelog: v0.2.0...v0.3.0

v0.2.0

What changed

See CHANGELOG.md for the curated entry for this version,
including which items were verified on hardware and which are still device-gated. The
auto-generated commit list follows below.

Installing

Download cinder-installer-windows-x64.exe, connect the Walkman in USB mass-storage
mode, and run it. Double-clicking opens a window; running it from a terminal gives the
same thing as text.

It does three things:

Install	Choose the optional components, stage them, flash.
Update	Reads the choices already on the player and keeps them, so a new build never silently resets a customised install.
Uninstall	Restores Sony's launch config from the backup the install made and removes Cinder's binaries. Your music, playlists and settings are untouched.

It reads what is on the player out of the device's own install log before offering
anything — whether Cinder is there, which version put it there, and whether the last
attempt succeeded, was reverted by the device's sanity gate, or never finished.

Everything the installer needs is inside the one file: the device binaries, both .UPG
packages, the component catalogue and Sony's own updater. No separate download, no WSL,
no usbipd, no driver setup, and no network connection. Sony's SoftwareUpdateTool.exe
performs the USB handoff and reboots the player.

Command line, if you prefer it:

cinder-installer --install | --update | --uninstall
cinder-installer --clean       # delete staged payload files left in the drive root
cinder-installer --check       # ask GitHub whether a newer release exists
cinder-installer -y            # no questions

Linux

cinder-installer-linux-x64 does the whole job — run it with sudo. It stages the
files and then sends the upgrade command itself: the same 12-byte vendor SCSI command
Sony's tool ends with. Root is needed because that is a raw SCSI passthrough. Without
it, the files are still staged correctly and the installer says what did not happen.

macOS

The installer stages the files but cannot finish. The upgrade command is a vendor SCSI
passthrough, and macOS only exposes those through an IOKit SCSITaskUserClient, which
the kernel refuses for an already-mounted disk. Finish from Linux or Windows; see
install.md.

The player has no update option in its own menus. This generation never had one —
the upgrade is always triggered by the host over USB.

cinder-home-install.upg and cinder-home-uninstall.upg are attached for that route
and for advanced recovery use. On Windows, the one-click executable is the recommended
path — it does the handoff for you.

Read RECOVERY.md first. This device has no public
DFU/EDL recovery path.

Verifying the download

GitHub shows its own sha256: digest beside each file in the assets list above. That is computed
by GitHub when the file is uploaded, and it proves your download matches what GitHub stores.

The sums below are a different link in the same chain: they are computed on the build runner,
before upload, so they say what was actually built. They should agree with GitHub's digests — if
they ever do not, something happened between the build and the release, and that is worth knowing.

05cad04569c42be85643ee122c6d345b187f9563458a88ff02016abf6703e4c8  cinder-home-install.upg
fe9acb1510a259078163858fe5268d7e43bb3f33e0244856c197e5e585242954  cinder-home-uninstall.upg
92e3fef88f61c343ff2c5bc24fcb5989d24147fb543b456058e988d5e0feed9a  cinder-installer-linux-x64
a268a4411509156893868e2381253f7413fbf45f07699ac87496f558c9546c7a  cinder-installer-windows-x64.exe

On Linux or macOS, save that block as SHA256SUMS next to the downloads and run:

sha256sum -c SHA256SUMS

On Windows:

Get-FileHash .\cinder-installer-windows-x64.exe -Algorithm SHA256

The installer is unsigned, so SmartScreen will warn about an unknown publisher — that
is expected for an unsigned binary and is not itself evidence of anything. Check the
hash if you want more than my word for it.

What's Changed

• docs: battery, performance and optimisation audit (2026-09-05) by @superwilso in #9
• Two audits: queue & playback (12 defects) and UI consistency (9 defects) by @superwilso in #10

Full Changelog: v0.1.9...v0.2.0

v0.1.9

What changed

See CHANGELOG.md for the curated entry for this version,
including which items were verified on hardware and which are still device-gated. The
auto-generated commit list follows below.

Installing

Download cinder-installer-windows-x64.exe, connect the Walkman in USB mass-storage
mode, and run it. It finds the player, stages every Cinder binary plus NW_WM_FW.UPG,
then launches Sony's native updater. Follow that updater's prompts; it performs the
required USB handoff and reboots the Walkman into Cinder. No WSL, usbipd, or manual
SCSI command is required.

Linux

cinder-installer-linux-x64 does the whole job — run it with sudo. It stages the
files and then sends the upgrade command itself: the same 12-byte vendor SCSI command
Sony's tool ends with. Root is needed because that is a raw SCSI passthrough. Without
it, the files are still staged correctly and the installer says what did not happen.

macOS

The installer stages the files but cannot finish. The upgrade command is a vendor SCSI
passthrough, and macOS only exposes those through an IOKit SCSITaskUserClient, which
the kernel refuses for an already-mounted disk. Finish from Linux or Windows; see
install.md.

The player has no update option in its own menus. This generation never had one —
the upgrade is always triggered by the host over USB.

cinder-home-install.upg and cinder-home-uninstall.upg are attached for that route
and for advanced recovery use. On Windows, the one-click executable is the recommended
path — it does the handoff for you.

Read RECOVERY.md first. This device has no public
DFU/EDL recovery path.

Verifying the download

GitHub shows its own sha256: digest beside each file in the assets list above. That is computed
by GitHub when the file is uploaded, and it proves your download matches what GitHub stores.

The sums below are a different link in the same chain: they are computed on the build runner,
before upload, so they say what was actually built. They should agree with GitHub's digests — if
they ever do not, something happened between the build and the release, and that is worth knowing.

d924d22a8825a4f08f45484fd4296f10b06a5ac1334a2da03903ccf1323ddd4d  cinder-home-install.upg
2490966523bb247015b3ce3d72bcc5672367d61a5194f8d24ee08e01809e2b0e  cinder-home-uninstall.upg
3199ae98798b484169ce96455afcf4c2dfe0e5766b5fb2d8f753b9418c37fc8e  cinder-installer-linux-x64
21f4d6535f9d642a8939a46ca5df60ed7a74eed8968dfae3feb8be358ba02f5c  cinder-installer-windows-x64.exe

On Linux or macOS, save that block as SHA256SUMS next to the downloads and run:

sha256sum -c SHA256SUMS

On Windows:

Get-FileHash .\cinder-installer-windows-x64.exe -Algorithm SHA256

The installer is unsigned, so SmartScreen will warn about an unknown publisher — that
is expected for an unsigned binary and is not itself evidence of anything. Check the
hash if you want more than my word for it.

Full Changelog: v0.1.8...v0.1.9

v0.1.8

What changed

See CHANGELOG.md for the curated entry for this version,
including which items were verified on hardware and which are still device-gated. The
auto-generated commit list follows below.

Installing

Download cinder-installer-windows-x64.exe, connect the Walkman in USB mass-storage
mode, and run it. It finds the player, stages every Cinder binary plus NW_WM_FW.UPG,
then launches Sony's native updater. Follow that updater's prompts; it performs the
required USB handoff and reboots the Walkman into Cinder. No WSL, usbipd, or manual
SCSI command is required.

Linux and macOS

cinder-installer-linux-x64 stages every file onto the player and then stops, because
the last step — Sony's SoftwareUpdateTool.exe performing the USB handoff — has no
equivalent outside Windows. It prints the three manual steps that finish the job
(eject cleanly, then Settings > Device Settings > Update on the player). macOS
users can copy cinder-home-install.upg across by hand and do the same; see
install.md.

cinder-home-install.upg and cinder-home-uninstall.upg are attached for that route
and for advanced recovery use. On Windows, the one-click executable is the recommended
path — it does the handoff for you.

Read RECOVERY.md first. This device has no public
DFU/EDL recovery path.

Verifying the download

SHA256SUMS is attached. On Windows:

Get-FileHash .\cinder-installer-windows-x64.exe -Algorithm SHA256

The installer is unsigned, so SmartScreen will warn about an unknown publisher — that
is expected for an unsigned binary and is not itself evidence of anything. Check the
hash against SHA256SUMS if you want more than my word for it.

Full Changelog: v0.1.7...v0.1.8

v0.1.5

Installing

Download cinder-installer-windows-x64.exe, connect the Walkman in USB mass-storage
mode, and run it. It finds the player, stages every Cinder binary plus NW_WM_FW.UPG,
then launches Sony's native updater. Follow that updater's prompts; it performs the
required USB handoff and reboots the Walkman into Cinder. No WSL, usbipd, or manual
SCSI command is required.

cinder-home-install.upg and cinder-home-uninstall.upg are also attached for
advanced recovery use. The one-click Windows executable is the recommended path.

Read RECOVERY.md first. This device has no public
DFU/EDL recovery path.

Verifying the download

SHA256SUMS is attached. On Windows:

Get-FileHash .\cinder-installer-windows-x64.exe -Algorithm SHA256

The installer is unsigned, so SmartScreen will warn about an unknown publisher — that
is expected for an unsigned binary and is not itself evidence of anything. Check the
hash against SHA256SUMS if you want more than my word for it.

Full Changelog: v0.1.4...v0.1.5