Running different Minecraft versions

[Obsi]

What I personally do is just rename my minecraft.jar to "minecraft_1.1.jar" (and I also zip it so I have 2 backups in case I make a mistake), then let the game update.... then when I want to go back to 1.1, I just rename the current minecraft.jar to "minecraft_1.2.jar" and rename the "minecraft_1.1.jar" back to just "minecraft.jar"

[AdmiralTriggerH]

Well, I'm not home yet but thanks to an iPad I'm able to post on the train, so here is a how to to have more than one minecraft version on the one computer (also allows for different mods etc)

First go to where ever you want your new minecraft install to live and Create the following directories:

minecraft
minecraft\bin
minecraft\data

Copy Minecraft.exe to minecraft\bin (this is the file you download from minecraft's website)
Copy your .minecraft directory to minecraft\data

Your .minecraft directory contains these words, and is located in your user profile (c:\Users\yourlogin\AppData\Roaming\ under Vista, or C:\Documents and Settings\yourlogin\Application Data\ under Windows XP). And you have to have played minecraft at least once for it to be there

Then create minecraft.bat file(you can call it anything just don't leave of the .bat), containing the following instructions:

set APPDATA=%CD%\data
bin\minecraft.exe

In order to create a bat file you can just create a text file with notepad and then add the text above and then change the file extension from .txt to .bat

Then, simply double-click minecraft.bat to play the game!

Note:
Altering the APPDATA environment variable does not touch the system APPDATA. This change will only affect programmes launched from the bat file. It will not change your system settings.


If you are on a Mac I'' still figuring out how to do it, I know it can be done just haven't figured it out, otherwise you could create a seperate user account and just switch users (fairly quick to do, just can't do other stuff from the other user at the same time)

[Irimar]

I use Minecraft Profile Manager - Minecraft Forum to keep my multiple installs straight. No copying jar files, no risk of accidentally deleting the wrong thing.

[Maorin]

Great find, Irimar.

I was trying to switch back and forth with a batch file, but this looks a lot easier.

[DarkDuck]

Count me in
and +1 for minecraft profile manager, I have 6 differnt versions of minecraft runningusing it

[Sorontar]

The posts above were copied from the thread Steampunk Timelapse build

[Sorontar]

Could Bazz or Obsi please collate up-to-date advice on how to manage multiple versions of Minecraft and place it in the relevant sticky/ies.

Sorontar

[Obsi]

yup, done - it's in the minecrafting 101 sticky.

(It's in the second post)

[Obsi]

Something I found out when trying the profile manager, it will create your new profiles by downloading the latest minecraft.jar (as it makes a new .minecraft folder for you, and loads the game from that). So to use older versions, you need to have a copy of the older minecraft.jar to overwrite the new one it creates.

So if, for example, you want to run a 1.1 version and a 1.2 version.... run that profile manager to make the 1.2 install, then copy your .minecraft folder from your original install, and paste it into a folder called "1.1" or something, in that profile manager folder... and you'll have your old install (with any mods and texture packs) and the new fresh one.

[Hoathy]

Originally Posted by Obsi

yup, done - it's in the minecrafting 101 sticky.

Thanks heaps Obsi! Will attempt to get this working tonight (been so looking forward to 1.2 )