Minecraft Education - How do you deploy?

[mavhc]

It's an indication of where MS is trying to push everyone, no windows servers on site, they want you to pay for everything every month

[free780]

Yep and 1 device per student/staff member.

[mavhc]

We're just about getting to 1:1, mostly so we can force students to deal with the damage they cause, it's your laptop, you broke it, you deal with it. Oh you broke it? Pay us or use paper instead for the rest of your school life.

 

But can only do that because the per computer cost has gone down, not if we have to pay more per computer fees. £6000/pupil/year funding, can spend £50 of that on a computer per year (£250 laptop, 5 years), but can't have licences costing another £50/year

[DavR]

Hahaha 1:1..... we're primary, more like 1:10....

[JasonNVSD]

I'm not sure when it was added, but Minecraft: Education Edition now has a desktop version!

 

The installer is an .msi wrapped in an .exe created using "Advanced Installer". I couldn't find any documentation from Microsoft, so I used the bottom section of of this. This is my command in SCCM:

MinecraftEducationEdition_x86_1.9.1.0.exe /exenoui /q AI_DESKTOP_SH=1

Edited June 20, 2019 by JasonNVSD

[ass17]

I'm not sure when it was added, but Minecraft: Education Edition now has a desktop version!

 

The installer is an .msi wrapped in an .exe created using "Advanced Installer". I couldn't find any documentation from Microsoft, so I used the bottom section of of this. This is my command in SCCM:

MinecraftEducationEdition_x86_1.9.1.0.exe /exenoui /q AI_DESKTOP_SH=1

 

Where did you download the desktop version from?

[Arthur]

I'm not sure when it was added, but Minecraft: Education Edition now has a desktop version!

That's good news! Thanks, Jason.

 

Link to installer: https://aka.ms/downloadmee-desktopApp

 

Btw, the MSI (and associated files) get extracted to:

 

C:\ProgramData\Microsoft Studios\Minecraft Education Edition 1.9.1.0\install\33F06DC

 

It's a bit quicker to install since the EXE installer doesn't need to extract the files first.

 

Note. The folder needs to be copied while the following dialog box is open, otherwise it gets deleted.

 

Edited June 21, 2019 by Arthur

[Arthur]

Where did you download the desktop version from?

Here's the link to the MSI-based installer...

 

https://aka.ms/downloadmee-desktopApp

[DavR]

Interesting that Microsoft have been forced to backtrack from $%^ing appx files to just a normal installer. They must have got so many complaints.

 

I wish I'd had this when I was hacking away trying to get our deployment working!

[mavhc]

Still sticking with the old java version, 1 off cost vs per user per year subscription.

 

Does this one work on LTSC?

[Arthur]

Still sticking with the old java version, 1 off cost vs per user per year subscription.

Are you also using a non-Oracle JRE/JDK with Minecraft Edu (the old version)?

 

I only did a quick test with v1.7.10 and it seems to work fine with the x64 Amazon Corretto 8 JDK.

 

Does this one work on LTSC?

It does as long as you install the x86 Visual C++ 2017 Redistributable. I have just tested it in a LTSC 1809 VM.

 

Edited June 21, 2019 by Arthur

[mavhc]

When I upgraded old desktops to Win 10 there was a conflict between java, the chipset gpu drivers, and win 10, so put the newest java that was compatible on a network share, and made MinecraftEdu use that, so Java isn't even installed. Never updated it.

[chazzy2501]

I have both the older appxbundle installer with the .bat and this .msi based one, which to deploy?

[Arthur]

I have both the older appxbundle installer with the .bat and this .msi based one, which to deploy?

I would deploy the MSI. It's going to be less hassle.

[DavR]

Plus, if it's the .bat installer downloaded from the Minecraft EE website, it's not a silent install, where the MSI should be.

[JasonNVSD]

Interesting that Microsoft have been forced to backtrack from $%^ing appx files to just a normal installer. They must have got so many complaints.

 

I wish I'd had this when I was hacking away trying to get our deployment working!

Yep, score one for procrastination.

 

I'm curious how updates will work. Will it allow out-of-date versions to be used? Will it prompt students to update?

[free780]

Yep and SSO may not work as Seamlessly. I kinda like the store model. It makes updates easier and there is a shared app storage group policy setting.

[jackhunt]

We use Intune to automatically push out the Windows Store version of the app - every new device gets the app fully installed within 5 minutes of first boot and logon.

 

If you purchased Minecraft licences from the Education store, you can assign there. If you have Microsoft 365 A3 or Microsoft 365 A5 licences (Inlcuding Student use benefit) Minecraft can be assigned when you give a user an Office 365 licence (Both come with Minecraft - Please note this is a different licences from Office A3/A5).

[DavR]

A postscript on the MSI install of Minecraft........... turns out it's got an autoupdater attached! Our deployment updated itself from 1.12.0 to 1.12.5 this week without warning, causing minor havoc in SCCM.

 

It's a matter of preference, but personally, I like to nobble all autoupdaters so I know what's on my network. I'm just preparing an updated deployment, if anyone else wants to know how to disable this feature, you need the change MSI property INSTALL_UPDATER to NO (well, any value other than INSTALL really).

 

I've done this by creating my own MST with Orca, it's under the main Property table.