A Teacher’s Guide to Installing MinecraftEdu on a PC

Click to accept the license agreement and then select the version for your operating system. For a PC, that would most likely be Windows x64.

During the Install, select the default options by clicking the “Next” button. You will do this a lot.

Continue accepting the default options.

Soon a progress bar will pop up as Windows installs Java on your system.

DO NOT change the destination folder. If you had the skills to really work with that, you would not be reading this tutorial.

When completed, you should see a notice that Java has been successfully installed.

You will need to purchase a server and user license from MinecraftEdu. Once you have purchased a licenses and registered your account, you will be able to log in and access the downloads page.

MinecraftEdu typically runs a few versions behind the latest release of Minecraft. This is really nice because you know that it is very stable. It also only allows tested Mods to be loaded. (Mods will be discussed in another article.)

Download the installer. Currently MinecraftEdu is only supported on Macs and PCs. The browsers will know automatically which version you need. Launch the installer and follow the steps below.

Select your language then hit continue.

Acknowledge the installation instructions by clicking Continue.

Accept the license agreement and click continue.

Here you can choose to add the Server Launcher if you wish. If you aren’t sure you can always re-run the installer and add it later. Installing it will not hurt anything and the file size is not very large. The other thing to pay attention to is the Install Location.

If you know that you are the Administrator on your PC, choose the default location. If you do not have administrative privileges, you will want to select another location. Your User folder is typically a good place. If you are not sure, take the default. If it doesn’t create a shortcut on the desktop, then re-run the installer and change the location to your User folder. In this example it would be C:Usersdmccall On your PC it would be C:Usersyour name Replace “your name” with your actual login name. Then hit Continue.

The Installer will put all the necessary files in place.

When the Installation is finished, click Continue.

Here you can choose to read the “Getting Started” page, close the installer, or open the launcher. This is a good point to double check the install. Click “Close Installer” and look for a shortcut on your desktop. If you do not see one, it is very likely that you will need to re-run the installer and choose a different directory as mentioned above. The Icon should look like the image to the left.

To run the launcher, simply double click the icon. It will “think” for a while and then open the following window.

When running for the first time, go ahead and check for Updates. It is fairly common for there to be a few. From this launcher you have the choice to run regular Minecraft, MinecraftEdu, Start the MinecraftEdu Server, load Mods, or do the Updates mentioned.

Check back for more topics in this series including Installing on the Mac, Mods, Creating a Server, and more.