Hekate has an MTP feature that allows you to transfer files via a USB cable.
What are you trying to boot from Hekate? And what happens when you try booting it?
Booting straight into Atmosphere is vague. There are 2 ways of booting into Atmosphere; either with Hekate or fusee. Fusee is the default method of launching Atmosphere while Hekate requires either user configuration or downloading a pre-configured setup. Booting Atmosphere via Hekate has always been the superior option because not only is it faster but allows you to choose how you want to boot; fusee only boots Atmosphere and won't show you if its booting emuMMC or sysMMC. Using Hekate to inject fusee is the same as using fusee to boot Atmosphere so this is only useful if you're a purist who wishes to boot Atmosphere the intended way but keep Hekate as it is the most useful tool in the Switch scene.
You do not 'install' Hekate nor Atmosphere. Hekate is a payload that you must send every time you turn off the console and Atmosphere exists solely on the SD card; it cannot be installed to the console itself.
So make a copy of your hekate_ipl.ini file, delete the old bootloader folder, put the new onto your SD card, and put the backup of your hekate_ipl.ini file in the new bootloader folder.
Try installing it with
TinWoo Installer instead.
1. Where did you download your patches from?
2. Not all places have the updated patches. Games don't need newer patches; new patches are only needed for firmware or CFW updates
3. What options do you see?
While Kosmos is discontinued, that doesn't mean you should switch to vanilla Atmosphere. Kosmos isn't a CFW; its just Atmosphere with Hekate so if you update both, it will achieve the same effect as using Kosmos. Alternatively, there is a spiritual successor to Kosmos called DeepSea that although isn't made by the same team, continues the tradition of bundling Hekate, Atmosphere, and some homebrew apps. Either way, I don't understand why anyone would recommend switching to vanilla Atmosphere as you would lose out on one of the mos valuable tools in the Switch scene which is Hekate. Also the general rule is to always update your CFW before your firmware because newer CFW versions will always support older firmware versions but older CFW versions won't support newer firmware versions.
I don't see anywhere that the Switch supports xCloud. Anyway, there is always a chance of being banned when you hack a console; that's general common sense. Whether you will or will not get banned is up to chance so nobody can tell you for sure what will happen. If you stay offline, you will not get banned but staying offline achieves the same result as being banned meaning no online access.
