Legacy MinecraftEdu on Windows 10

[DavR]

Has anyone managed to get the legacy Java version of MinecraftEdu working on Windows 10?

 

By MinecraftEdu I mean the TeacherGaming version, before Microsoft bought it out to create Minecraft Education Edition. We bought the licenses outright for this just before they got bought out by Microsoft, timing huh!

 

I've had this working fine on Windows 7 for about six months, but when I install the latest stable release on Windows 10, I can get the launcher up, but can't get the main program, javaw.exe just crashes.

 

I've tried:

• Running as administrator
  
• Disabling UAC
  
• Running from network share, C:\minecraft, appdata
  
• Two different graphics chipsets
  
• Older version of Java (as per bug here)
  

 

I'm stumped tbh, it's just a Java app, it should work. A few teachers are just getting the hang of it, I'd hate to the have to dump it / re-spend the money on the MS version when we do our Windows 10 upgrade.

[LeeCSE]

Hi Dave,

 

Try running it in compatibility mode.

 

I had a similar problem in a different java game and this solved it for me… bit of a long shot but it might work?

 

Lee

[DavR]

Unfortunately, the whole program is just a .jar file (very lazy development on Teacher Gaming's part IMO), so I don't have an executable to set compatibility mode on. I would have to set compatibility mode on javaw.exe, who knows what unintended consequences that might have.

 

UPDATE - tried it anyway, still no dice

Edited November 2, 2016 by DavR

[LeeCSE]

Ahh OK, that's a shame. Good luck finding a fix but I'm not sure what else to suggest.

[DavR]

Yeah, thanks anyway Lee! It was a good thought.

[cygnes]

I too have this issue, previously i was able to install a specific version of java, with a botched unsupported graphics driver, however this no longer works.

 

personally, i feel that as a school that subscribes to their open volume licensing, it should be free, i realise they do this free for a year if you have purchased a Windows 10 device, but 1 year is no good.

[DavR]

It's very fussy MinecraftEdu. I got it working in the end by forcing it to use a specific Java version, and even then will not work on certain graphics chipsets.

 

It's working, but we are looking into the updated Minecraft Education Edition. It's something like $5 per user per annum, but I've been told that this is concurrent, so if I wanted to only ever use this with one class at a time, I only need 30 x student users.

[cygnes]

It's very fussy MinecraftEdu. I got it working in the end by forcing it to use a specific Java version, and even then will not work on certain graphics chipsets.

 

It's working, but we are looking into the updated Minecraft Education Edition. It's something like $5 per user per annum, but I've been told that this is concurrent, so if I wanted to only ever use this with one class at a time, I only need 30 x student users.

 

how did you force it to use a specific version of Java ?

 

i'm struggling to find that.

[DavR]

I've got Java 8 Update 51 installed, which is the last version of Java before you run into graphics card difficulties I think. From there, it's just a custom shortcut for the Minecraft client.

 

The string we're using is:

 

"C:\Program Files (x86)\Java\jre1.8.0_51\bin\javaw.exe" -jar "C:\ProgramData\minecraftedu\startlauncher.jar"

 

C:\ProgramData\minecraftedu is where I chose to deploy our MinecraftEdu files, your scenario may be different.

[cygnes]

Brill, yeah that version of java did the trick, seems to now work.

thanks DaveAshworth

[DavR]

Glad to hear it @cygnes, happy 'crafting!

[cygnes]

No no longer works

[DavR]

No no longer works

 

How so?

 

Still working for us on Win 10 1703 as far as I'm aware...

[cygnes]

works now

 

at some point java had updated (again) and was using the incorrect version. problem solved by replacing the link.

Edited July 19, 2018 by cygnes