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[toughenough6]

This will be a short tutorial which will show you how to install Minecraft onto your USB drive, and play it on any computer, regardless of internet connection.

Requirements:
- Minecraft, played at least once to download game files.
- USB drive (256mb should suffice, depends on your current minecraft data)
- Java on any computer you wanna play it on*

*There may be a way to put java on your USB drive also, making you be able to play minecraft on ANY computer, java or not, internet or not. (Would still need to be able to handly minecraft, obviously.) This is currently uncomfirmed.


Summary:

You are going to put all your minecraft files onto your usb drive, along with the launcher, then make the launcher look in the flash drive, instead of where it normally looks for game files, which is in the computer under appdata.



Step 1.

You are now going to make the folders on your USB drive. Open your USB drive, and create 3 new folders. First create one called "Minecraft" or "Portable Minecraft" or whatever you want. This will contain everything. Now go into that folder, and create 2 more folders, "bin" and "data" alongside each other. Check out this picture:





Step 2.

Now you want to find your minecraft launcher. It is called minecraft.exe, and is probably on your desktop. It is what you click on to start minecraft. Copy this into your newly created "bin" folder.





Step 3.
Now you need to copy the actual core minecraft files over to your flash drive. These files are the things that make minecraft run and work. Find your .minecraft folder. If you don't know how to do this, here is a real quick tutorial:

- Go into "My Computer"
- Click on your hard drive (probably your "C:" drive)
- Click on the "Users" folder
- Click on your user
- Now click on the actual adress bar (Right now it would say "C:\Users\yournamehere". Note that if you are on windows 7/vista you need to click on the address bar to make it say that.)
- add a backslash (this:\ ) right after your name. (It's the key beside enter and above shift)
- add "APPDATA" after this new backslash. Hit Enter.
- Go into "Roaming"
- You should see your .minecraft folder near the top here.

Here is a picture of mine:


*Note the directory, make sure it is similar to yours*


Now copy that whole .minecraft folder into your newly created "data" folder on your USB.

Just note, that if you have any mods or anything, these will also transfer over, along with saves. This step is copying all the aspects of your minecraft on your computer, to your USB drive. You might wanna back up your .minecraft, then delete it and start the launcher to generate a new one, just so your minecraft portable is nice and working.

Here's another pic just for you pertaining to this step:





Step 4.

This step is where you might mess up, so pay careful attention.
You need to create a new .bat file, that tells the minecraft launcher to look in this USB for the files instead of in the computer's hard drive.

Open up notepad, and copy this code into it:

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

Make sure to include the enter between "data" and "bin".
Now save the file as "MC_Portable.bat" or something similar. You can name it whatever you want, just make sure to have the .bat at the end. This will be what you click to start it up.

And here is another screenshot for those of you who need it:



Save that just inside your USB, inside your "Minecraft Portable" folder, or whatever you named it.


So, now you should be able to double click on that .bat file, and run minecraft.

This will run from any computer that can normally handle minecraft. The reason this is useful is because you can't just copy the minecraft launcher over to a USB drive, since it will try to connect to minecraft.net every time and download the files to that computer's hard drive.

An Extra Tip:
Minecraft writes a lot of data to the hard drive (or in this case, the USB drive) which may be slow if you don't have a whole lot of space on it. An easy fix is to put everything you just made into a new .zip file, and just unzip it to any computer's desktop to use it. If you do this, make sure to copy the files back to the USB and not just delete them, or else the USB's data will be the same as before you put it on the computer, and any saved data that was added while you ran it on the computer will not be kept.


Just to let you know, this will not alter anything on the actual computer that you are using, so you do not need to worry. The computer will not be changed at all.


If you want to support this thread and spread the word, put this banner in your signature!

[url=http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/814010-how-to-play-minecraft-off-your-usb-drive-any-computer-any-minecraft-version/][IMG]http://img442.imageshack.us/img442/8868/mcportbanner.jpg[/IMG][/url]

And it should show up like this:




This whole thing took me a while to put together, so if you found it helpful, give me a +1 in the bottom right there. Thanks!

[stia4]

Cool, but it seems to be a problem with some of your pictures
Edit: I see them now

[Flubbz]

Cool

[toughenough6]

stia4, on 24 November 2011 - 10:28 PM, said:

Cool, but it seems to be a problem with some of your pictures
Edit: I see them now

Yeah the image uploader that I used was messed, but I uploaded em to a different one. Better now.

[LtCharizard]

Nice guide, but I keep getting an error when I try to run the .bat.
It says:
"The registry refers to a nonexistent Java Runtime Environment or the runtime is corrupted. The system cannot find the path specified."
Help?

[boioi]

LtCharizard, on 01 December 2011 - 11:53 PM, said:

Nice guide, but I keep getting an error when I try to run the .bat.
It says:
"The registry refers to a nonexistent Java Runtime Environment or the runtime is corrupted. The system cannot find the path specified."
Help?

Correct your java path by going to computer properties, advanced settings, then environment variables down to path then google the path for your operating system.

[blackcat8]

does the minecraft have to be clean? i was hoping i could use this to play the technic pack without having to update to get on servers when i want to

also is it possible to run two off the same USB, but have them launch separately? or would i need a second USB?

[Sko]

Replace 'Any Computer' with 'Windows'. And there's an error in 'Step 2.':The text says 'copy to data', the picture says 'copy to bin'.

[bakugo]

Congrats on getting 3 rep out of something I have thought about for ages but have not done due to it being already done.

[CreeperPeepingTom]

when i copied it to the computer i tried to run the .bat file as you said it will be what you run the minecraft off of and it just popped up and then nothing showed up????? and when i tried to launch it from the minecraft launcher... i logged in and it said "cant connect to minecraft.net" Help please??????

[toughenough6]

blackcat8, on 03 December 2011 - 10:58 AM, said:

does the minecraft have to be clean? i was hoping i could use this to play the technic pack without having to update to get on servers when i want to

also is it possible to run two off the same USB, but have them launch separately? or would i need a second USB?

No your minecraft can be modded or anything, it doesnt matter

CreeperPeepingTom, on 04 December 2011 - 04:59 AM, said:

when i copied it to the computer i tried to run the .bat file as you said it will be what you run the minecraft off of and it just popped up and then nothing showed up????? and when i tried to launch it from the minecraft launcher... i logged in and it said "cant connect to minecraft.net" Help please??????

Is the .bat file inside the Minecraft Portable folder?

CreeperPeepingTom, on 04 December 2011 - 04:59 AM, said:

when i copied it to the computer i tried to run the .bat file as you said it will be what you run the minecraft off of and it just popped up and then nothing showed up????? and when i tried to launch it from the minecraft launcher... i logged in and it said "cant connect to minecraft.net" Help please??????

Is the .bat file inside the Minecraft Portable folder?

[Hertsky]

Thanks so much for this guide! I was just browsing the forums.
I just tried it and it looks like I can use it to create multiple independent Minecraft's on my computer.
I vote for a sticky.

[toughenough6]

Sko, on 03 December 2011 - 11:21 AM, said:

Replace 'Any Computer' with 'Windows'. And there's an error in 'Step 2.':The text says 'copy to data', the picture says 'copy to bin'.

Fixed it, text should have said bin. Thanks for pointing that out.

bakugo, on 03 December 2011 - 12:10 PM, said:

Congrats on getting 3 rep out of something I have thought about for ages but have not done due to it being already done.

Meh, it was already done but there were no good in-depth tutorials on it & a lot of people don't understand this.

Hertsky, on 05 December 2011 - 05:42 AM, said:

Thanks so much for this guide! I was just browsing the forums.
I just tried it and it looks like I can use it to create multiple independent Minecraft's on my computer.
I vote for a sticky.

Thanks! That would be nice!

[bajansam]

fatal error occurred (2: The working directory could not be created: F:\MineCRaft Portable\data\.minecraft

Nice tutorial!! apart from this is the only problem it does this when i run the .bat file can you help? cheers!

[aksupertiger]

I use the PC Gamer Minecraft Demo. How would I adapt these instructions to that?

[Team_Subspace]

bajansam, on 08 December 2011 - 05:53 PM, said:

fatal error occurred (2: The working directory could not be created: F:\MineCRaft Portable\data\.minecraft

Nice tutorial!! apart from this is the only problem it does this when i run the .bat file can you help? cheers!

I have this same problem...

EDIT: I found the problem - The bat file's contents have to be specific. Check and make sure there are no spaces after the "set APPDATA=%CD%\data" line. There should be that then a new line right after "\data"

[jrob888]

Thanks this works great! All I needed was to have a second minecraft directory without having a manager, I'm using 1.0 for my server until the enderman pickup fix comes out, and 1.1 for everything else.

And a note to anyone copying and pasting "set APPDATA=%CD%\data bin\minecraft.exe" from the code box, if you copy it all at once it will have a tab at the end of "data" so make sure to remove that in your .bat file.

[Andrew23758]

When I click on the .bat file it opens up Windows Process Manager, but then W.P.M immediately closes itself and thus not oping Minecraft..... Can you help me?

[Andrew23758]

Bump. Please can any one answer my problem above? ^^


EDIT: Also does it work on a computer already with MC on it? That might be my problem...

[blackcat8]

Andrew23758, on 24 January 2012 - 01:58 AM, said:

When I click on the .bat file it opens up Windows Process Manager, but then W.P.M immediately closes itself and thus not oping Minecraft..... Can you help me?

i think i got a similar problem and just gave up, i don't need this anyways, but i would like to see an answer