DashX360: an Xbox 360 dashboard recreation for Windows in WPF

Two interfaces of the same console, rebuilt for a PC

DashX360 is described as the first fan made recreation of the Xbox 360 Metro Dashboard experience for Windows, now featuring both the Metro and the Blades dashboards, and the readme calls it the first recreation of its kind.

The scope is a shell rather than a console. It provides Xbox 360 inspired Metro dashboard tabs for games, apps, music, video, social, Bing and settings, and Xbox 360 inspired Blades dashboard tabs for marketplace, Xbox Live, games, media and system. On top of that sits an Xbox Guide overlay with Friends, Party, Profile, media controls, achievements and search screens.

The Blades interface arrived in the 1.3.0 release, and the changelog for it is specific about what that meant. It added the Blades style dashboard with the Marketplace, Xbox Live, Games, Media and System blades, the opening, closing and navigation animations, a Blades style Xbox Guide based on the original dashboard, controller navigation throughout the interface, and integration of the Blades alongside the existing Metro dashboard. The release also brought various interface refinements and general performance, stability and quality of life improvements.

The author is explicit that the Blades recreation is still being improved, and that some animations and smaller visual details may change in future versions. That is worth reading as a statement about the current state rather than as a roadmap, since a shell that is being adjusted as it is built will look different across versions.

The implementation is C# and WPF, and the top-level listing shows a WPF project with a XAML-heavy shape: an app.baml and a mainwindow.baml at the root, a controls/ directory, a views/ directory, themes/, Assets/ and Data/, and the project file is named XboxMetroLauncher.csproj rather than after the product.

The controller is the primary input, and one Steam setting gets in the way

The navigation model is the defining choice here, and it is stated as controller first with keyboard and mouse support.

The controls are mapped to a gamepad rather than to a keyboard, and the full list is short:

- `A` / `Enter`: select
- `B` / `Escape`: back
- `X`: context actions where available
- `Y`: secondary actions where available
- Win + Ctrl + Shift / Back + Start : open the Xbox Guide overlay

The readme gives the guide combination two ways, with the keyboard equivalent being Win plus Left Shift plus Left Ctrl.

The use steps are five and the third one is the important one. You launch the application, connect your controller, and in Steam you turn off Enable Guide Button Chords for controllers. Then you use the Back plus Start buttons together, or the keyboard equivalent, to open the Guide, and navigate with the controller as you would on the original Xbox 360 dashboard.

That Steam setting is the one piece of real friction in the whole thing, and it is listed again in the requirements section alongside the operating system requirement of Windows 10 or Windows 11. The reason is not a limitation of the project but a conflict: Steam reserves that button combination for its own overlay, so the guide never receives the input it is waiting for. The symptom would be a guide that does not open when the user presses the buttons, which is exactly the kind of bug that looks like a broken application rather than a stolen keystroke.

For anyone porting this to another launcher, the same conflict will appear under a different name, and the readme's approach of naming the setting rather than the symptom is the useful part.

Local profile data, cached gamer pictures and a Steam library

The feature list describes an application that keeps its data on the machine rather than talking to a server, and that is the point of a dashboard recreation.

There is local profile and friend data with cached gamer pictures, which means the tiles are populated from what the application has stored rather than from a live Xbox profile service. There is a boot video, dashboard audio cues and Metro style tile presentation, which are the cosmetic details that make the recreation feel like the original rather than merely resemble it.

The Steam library scanning with Steam provided cover art is the feature that makes the dashboard useful rather than nostalgic. A dashboard that shows a grid of tiles you cannot launch anything from is a wallpaper, and one that shows your installed games with their cover art is a front end. Scanning the local Steam library and using the art Steam ships is a pragmatic solution to a problem the original solved with a server-side catalogue.

The customisation is broad, and it is the part that turns the recreation into something personal. You can swap between the Blades and Metro styles, and the guide, sounds and startup are all configurable, so the result is your own personal dashboard rather than a fixed imitation. There is custom theme support as well.

Import and export support exists for user data transfer and version updates, which solves a real problem in this kind of project. When the application changes shape between versions, the data that drives the tiles has to come with you, and an export that can be re-imported after an update is the difference between a smooth upgrade and starting over.

The directory listing backs this up, with a Data/ directory and a themes/ directory sitting alongside the views, so the themes are separated from the code in the same way the saved data is.

The legal position, and what the project asks of anyone who builds on it

The final section of the readme is the legal disclaimer, and it is worth quoting in full because it defines the boundaries of the project.

It is an unofficial, non-commercial fan project. Xbox, Xbox 360, Xbox LIVE, Microsoft and related names, logos and imagery are property of Microsoft. The project is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Microsoft.

The working on the project section asks for something specific as well. It says DashX360 is open for people who want to help improve it, and that if you use the project, modify it, or build on top of it, please credit the original project and creator. It states plainly: do not reupload or redistribute modified versions in a way that makes it look like you created the original project from scratch.

That is a request rather than a licence, and the difference matters. The repository records no licence identifier, and the top-level listing includes no LICENSE file, so there is no explicit permission to copy, modify or redistribute the code in the way an MIT or Apache header would grant. The request to credit is the only guidance on the question, and the disclaimer covers trademarks rather than copyright.

The funding line is worth reading for its tone. The author says money will never be needed to use it, and that a ko-fi link is available if you like the work, which is a reasonable way to fund continued work on something that cannot be sold.

The credits point to the author's own YouTube channel for the original app, and the readme names zivvoz as the original project creator. For anyone planning to fork this, the sensible path is to open an issue with the author first, and to keep the credit line in any distribution.

What the project can tell you about WPF and what it cannot

There are two quite different reasons to look at this repository, and it is worth separating them.

As an application to run, it is a personal dashboard that recreates a console interface on a PC. The appeal is specific, a controller-driven shell with the tiles, the guide overlay and the boot video, and the Steam library integration is what gives it a job to do. The requirement is Windows 10 or Windows 11, a controller, and a Steam setting changed.

As a codebase to read, it is a WPF application built around a non-standard input model. Most WPF applications are built around the mouse and the keyboard, and building a shell around a gamepad forces a different set of decisions: focus handling, navigation semantics, how a button maps to a command, how the animations are triggered. The Blades release is interesting in that respect, because the opening, closing and navigation animations are the part of the work that has no equivalent in a mouse-driven application.

The limits are the usual ones for a fan project of this kind. The Blades recreation is still being improved and some animations and visual details may change. There is no stated licence. The project is by one author with a YouTube channel, and the release history is three versions in the last three months, v1.2.1 in July 2026, v1.2.2 later that month and v1.3.0 in September, which is the pace of someone actively building rather than maintaining a mature codebase.

The repository is not archived, the default branch is main, and the last push was on 2026-09-20, about a month before the current date. So the code is being worked on, but the whole point of the project is its fidelity to a specific piece of hardware, and that means it will keep chasing an interface that no longer exists.

Editorial conclusion

DashX360 suits a Windows player who wants the Xbox 360 dashboard experience on a PC with a controller, and a developer who wants a readable WPF example of a shell built around a gamepad rather than a mouse. It does not suit anyone expecting Microsoft support or a legitimate product, since the project is explicitly an unofficial, non-commercial fan project with no stated licence. Before building on it, read the legal section and the credit request, confirm the controller you own is one you are happy to navigate with, and turn off the Steam Guide Button Chords setting, which otherwise intercepts the combination the guide needs.

Frequently asked questions

Official sources

1. Issues
2. README
3. Releases
4. ZivvoZ/dashx360 on GitHub