I’ve been a Minecraft fan for a long time. I started playing on my phone in junior high school and remember spending evenings after evening self-study sessions in first year of high school building and terraforming. Later, I lost my save when switching phones, Minecraft was licensed to NetEase, and then I got busy with college entrance exams and gradually played less.

This article provides a detailed guide to downloading and installing Java Edition Minecraft on Windows.

Java

Java Edition Minecraft first requires installing Java. You can download the JDK from Oracle’s website. I recommend downloading Java 17. If you’re into backend development, using IntelliJ to download the JDK is easier.

HMCL

  • HMCL is a Minecraft launcher that can be downloaded from here

  • I recommend registering an account on LittleSkin, a skin website, and finding some skins you like

  • Bind your LittleSkin account directly in HMCL

    Binding LittleSkin Account

  • Then click Games and download a game instance. I chose version 1.18.2 with Forge version 40.2.0

    Game Version

  • After downloading, you can launch the game

    Successful Launch

Mac

I tried playing on MacBook as well. Since all the code is written in Java and Java is cross-platform, it works. Still download from HMCL, and it should give you a .jar package. Double-click this .jar package or run in command line:

java -jar HMCL-3.6.12.jar

And HMCL will run.

Multiplayer

To play with friends, the basic steps are:

  • Both you and your friends install the MC client with the same version
  • You or a friend hosts a server. Let’s say you host.
  • Open port forwarding to allow friends to join and add them to the whitelist (or use tunneling)
  • Friends set up an offline account and a LittleSkin account
  • On MC, select Multiple Player, put your public IP address in the address field (or domain, or tunneling address)

You can refer to: Deploying Minecraft Server with Docker on Debian | Kunyang’s Blog

Client Mods

You can download mods from CurseForge. Here are some essential mods:

  • JEI: Crafting recipe viewer

  • JER: Shows monster drops, ore distribution maps, etc., based on JEI

  • AppleSkin: Displays saturation, hunger recovery speed, etc., supplementing HUD information

  • Mouse Tweaks:

    • Enhances mouse dragging experience, quick inventory organization, batch transfers, etc.
    • Double-click left mouse button to sort
    • Hold Shift and drag to put items in chests
    • Scroll wheel also transfers items to inventory

  • JourneyMap: Minimap + real-time fullmap, browsable web interface

  • Jade: Item tooltips with hover information

  • Custom Skin Loader: Skin mod

  • Forgematica

    • Forge version of Litematica, design buildings in Creative mode, then use schematics in Survival mode

    • Requires dependency: MaFgLib

    • Use CTRL + Scroll to switch modes

      • Mode 1 lets you select blocks and choose box diagonals for making schematics

      • Press M to open Forgematica’s main menu, click Selection Editor to save schematics

      • Schematics are saved in .minecraft/schematics or find others’ schematics from forums

      • Then switch to Mode 5, right-click to paste the schematic where you want. Hold ALT and scroll to fine-tune position

      • For rotation, press M → Schematic Editor → Settings. Rotation is in the bottom right

        Schematic Settings

      • Press M → Settings → Render Layers to select single layer rendering, then locate to the player layer

    • Planet Minecraft has others’ creations. Forgematica and Litematica schematics are compatible.

  • Tweakerge

    • Forge version of Tweakeroo
    • Shortcut: X + C
    • Game enhancements, like improving Gamma to brighten caves

  • EasierVillagerTrading reForged

Skins

I encountered three skin issues and their solutions:

  • Can see your skin in offline mode but not in online mode

    • After successfully joining the server, my skin didn’t load. In Single Player Mode, the skin loaded fine. I thought the server didn’t send API requests to LittleSkin or needed a mod/plugin. I searched long without finding the answer. Then I found an HMCL article: Changing Skins in Offline Mode - Hello Minecraft! Launcher that solved it

    • Create a new offline account locally with the same username as LittleSkin, then select LittleSkin on the wardrobe button

      Creating Offline Account

      Wardrobe Select LittleSkin

    • Finally, launch with the offline account and join the server to see your skin.

  • Can see your skin in online mode, but friends can’t

    • Missing Custom Skin Loader mod

  • Skin changed to something you didn’t configure on LittleSkin