Rooting your Moto X with LOCKED Bootloader.

If you want usable root on the X you need two parts 1. Root Exploit, and 2. An Exploit that allows for disabling Write Protection.

An Exploit is basically a voulnerability found in the phone's ROM, bootloader, software or other part, which has been exploited to "hack" a certain feature in the phone, in this case to gain Root level access, or disable write protection. We rely on talented people to find these flaws, and write a process that can exploit them. Unfortunately, these flaws can be patched eventually which could render an exploit we use today, unsuable in the future. So an exploit we use today, might not work after the next ROM update.

Gaining root permissions is basically giving the user elevated permissions. Think of it as getting "administrator rights" in Windows. It allows us to do more, change more, than we could as a regular user.

When Write Protection is enabled (the phone's default state with locked bootloader, or the state you are in after you take the 4.4.2 OTA), you usually can not add or remove files from /system, /system/bin and the like. Any changes made to /system, or the like, (including, but not limited to, App installs, file modifications, deletions, renames, etc) are not permanent and are lost at power off/on.

Even if you have root, but Write Protection is Enabled, any apps you've installed that need to write to system can't permanently save their changes (you have to re-do every time your phone powers off/on), and any Root type app, or app that could be installed to /system after WP is enabled will be lost at power off/on.

MotoWpNoMo was used on 4.4.0 and below to Disable Write Protection. Part of the 4.4.2 update patches the exploit that MotoWpNoMo used, so it wont work on 4.4.2 and above and with 4.4.2 you can't downgrade the rom safely to 4.4 or prior, without risk of bricking your phone anymore.

SlapMyMoto/RockMyMoto/etc, used to gain ROOT on 4.4 and lower. It involved downgrading the rom to use an exploit in 4.2.2 to gain root. But with 4.4.2 you can't downgrade the rom safely, without risk of bricking your phone, anymore.

So for 4.4.2 and above, if you have a locked bootloader, you can't disable write protection, and you have to use a new ROOT exploit.

JCASE has released Pie for Motorola phones, while it Roots 4.4.2, it doesn't address a Write Protection dis-abler. I've not seen any talk about work on that for locked bootloaders (when you unlock the bootloader, like on Dev Editions, the write protection is disabled). Because write protection is still enabled, it does not survive power off/on and root type apps can't write to /system and the like. NOTE: the vulnerability exploited in the PIE process is patched in 4.4.3, so it can't be used on 4.4.3.

GEOHOT had released Towelroot. While not intended to work on the X, it partially does, but its not as consistent.

With Android 4.4.4 for the X begining to roll out, only time will tell what will work to root the X with a locked bootloader.

As new ROM updates come out, if you have a locked bootloader, you have to sit tight until a new ROOT exploit and Write Protect Disable Exploit are found.

If you are rooted with write protection disabled, you might want to check out the SafeStrap discussions over at Rootzwiki.com. That might at least afford you a way to run 4.4.2 without write protection.