It's not a way of blocking but you could you a program to see what students are doing. My college uses a program called syncron eyes, this can let you lock or shut down the computer if you need to.
You could try blocking any executable with the word Minecraft in it (i.e. *minecraft*.exe, *minecraft*.jar), but again, people will find a way around it.
You could restrict access to %AppData%\.minecraft, but students will figure out that you can call set APPDATA=SomewhereElse from a batch file and they will get around it.
To block multiplayer, you can try blocking port 25565 which will make a bunch of the multiplayer servers not work.
Another way would be to block the Minecraft account authentication servers (I'm not positive, but it may be off *.minecraft.net or *.mojang.com), but they will still be able to play in offline mode.
Basically, there is no sure way of blocking Minecraft from being run unless you completely disable Java.
You could try blocking any executable with the word Minecraft in it (i.e. *minecraft*.exe, *minecraft*.jar), but again, people will find a way around it.
That seems like it should be effective for most. No matter what he does, there will be someone who can get around it, but if it is something that is hard to explain to someone who is tech illiterate, it should be good enough.
Have you told them politely not to play Minecraft during class?
There will always be those dumb-a kids that will say yes, but every time a teacher turns around they start playing and not doing their actual work, then they get away with not doing any group work... Personal experience, why I like working alone.
Don't know if this would work, but what about administrational tools on the laptops (somewhat like parental controls)? You can also password protect .exe s (.) In a class, they would have a folder full of fun games to play as rewards if you beat your goal. The teacher would give the password to one of the games to play. Each day, she assigned all the games a different password. Not efficient, but somewhat clever. I know this probably isn't helping, but hopefully it gives you an idea.
At my school, the .minecraft folder is simply blocked from the appdata folder. Although you could get around it by copying the folder in under a different name, then change it back.
You could try blocking any executable with the word Minecraft in it (i.e. *minecraft*.exe, *minecraft*.jar), but again, people will find a way around it.
You could restrict access to %AppData%\.minecraft, but students will figure out that you can call set APPDATA=SomewhereElse from a batch file and they will get around it.
To block multiplayer, you can try blocking port 25565 which will make a bunch of the multiplayer servers not work.
Another way would be to block the Minecraft account authentication servers (I'm not positive, but it may be off *.minecraft.net or *.mojang.com), but they will still be able to play in offline mode.
Basically, there is no sure way of blocking Minecraft from being run unless you completely disable Java.
At my school, the .minecraft folder is simply blocked from the appdata folder. Although you could get around it by copying the folder in under a different name, then change it back.
edit: sorry, didnt see this post.
Still wont work, the mc.exe can be changed to run from a different folder
Have you tried Qustodio? It's free and you can block sites with minimum manual intervention. It also has a great reporting feature allowing you to view data for the last 30 days. It's available here www.qustodio.com. Not sure how it will perform on a server level but from my experience, easiest solution at the top of my head is to create an image of the OS with Qustodio installed on it for distribution across each of the PC's. Should be pretty straight forward.
I know this is a fair bump, but are there any other applications on the school computers that use javaw.exe? If not, you could just prevent access to that specific part of java but i'm not so sure about that causing instability with the system. It's likely that it would mess with stuff if disabled. Still.. it would pretty much guarantee Minecraft not running.
Also, to the person above me.. they have no trouble blocking the sites. It's the actualy game/program that they want to block.
Best solution so far is to block port 25565, and access to the .minecraft folder. Both these options can be worked around, but it's still another step for the students to get the game working.
Blocking the port 25565 loopback could be done by just having a startup application to bind that port. You can't bind the same port twice on the same machine, so this would cause singleplayer to not work, and blocking outgoing connections to 25565 at the router would stop many multiplayer servers (but not all) from working. Also, if the students haven't even worked around the block to the .minecraft folder in the first place, they wouldn't even be able to launch the game.
There's a lot of occasions where you can block and hide things more and more, but sometimes there's always a way to uncover it. My way of thinking is just to put as many roadblocks up as possible so uncovering it becomes more difficult.
Really your only solution is to block java, or just uninstall it from the computers, if they need them for something else then I cant think of anyhting
You could try MacAfee Family Protection which will block minecraft.net and servers but not offline play which they will use.But it prevents getting it off minecraft.net and any webstie you can find that has it.
As FTB or feed the beast now can no longer run in offline mode I think that is good. Minecraft can be played on servers that are offline mode and the same for Tekkit. Changing it from 25565 will not really affect anything as they can play on offline/cracked servers. They can play straight off of a flash drive and still only be able to Offline servers. Also, The students can just use a proxy to access other servers and blocking 25565 will only stop them from creating their own servers. They will always be able to use servers that are hosted online. This is close to impossible to accomplish. Good luck you will need it.
Hi if you are still wondering how to block minecraft use Mcafee that anti virus software can block everything I even tried playing a joke on my brother by blocking minecraft and you know what Mcafee stopped Java from downloading and the only thing there was the minecraft program not the actual game
You could restrict access to %AppData%\.minecraft, but students will figure out that you can call set APPDATA=SomewhereElse from a batch file and they will get around it.
To block multiplayer, you can try blocking port 25565 which will make a bunch of the multiplayer servers not work.
Another way would be to block the Minecraft account authentication servers (I'm not positive, but it may be off *.minecraft.net or *.mojang.com), but they will still be able to play in offline mode.
Basically, there is no sure way of blocking Minecraft from being run unless you completely disable Java.
That seems like it should be effective for most. No matter what he does, there will be someone who can get around it, but if it is something that is hard to explain to someone who is tech illiterate, it should be good enough.
That only works on the kids who already aren't playing Minecraft during class.
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edit: sorry, didnt see this post.
Also, to the person above me.. they have no trouble blocking the sites. It's the actualy game/program that they want to block.
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Blocking the port 25565 loopback could be done by just having a startup application to bind that port. You can't bind the same port twice on the same machine, so this would cause singleplayer to not work, and blocking outgoing connections to 25565 at the router would stop many multiplayer servers (but not all) from working. Also, if the students haven't even worked around the block to the .minecraft folder in the first place, they wouldn't even be able to launch the game.
There's a lot of occasions where you can block and hide things more and more, but sometimes there's always a way to uncover it. My way of thinking is just to put as many roadblocks up as possible so uncovering it becomes more difficult.
You could try MacAfee Family Protection which will block minecraft.net and servers but not offline play which they will use.But it prevents getting it off minecraft.net and any webstie you can find that has it.
As FTB or feed the beast now can no longer run in offline mode I think that is good. Minecraft can be played on servers that are offline mode and the same for Tekkit. Changing it from 25565 will not really affect anything as they can play on offline/cracked servers. They can play straight off of a flash drive and still only be able to Offline servers. Also, The students can just use a proxy to access other servers and blocking 25565 will only stop them from creating their own servers. They will always be able to use servers that are hosted online. This is close to impossible to accomplish. Good luck you will need it.
I believe someone said this earlier but just block javaw.exe
Not all Java applications will use that process.
Hi if you are still wondering how to block minecraft use Mcafee that anti virus software can block everything I even tried playing a joke on my brother by blocking minecraft and you know what Mcafee stopped Java from downloading and the only thing there was the minecraft program not the actual game