Tutorials/Playing and saving Minecraft on a thumb drive with the old launcher

This guide aims to make minecraft on a portable drive with the 1.6 or lower version launcher. If you have the 2.0 launcher or above, please see this guide.

Introduction
You will need about 2 GB minimum of space in the directory/portable drive. A 1 GB drive/directory CAN be used, but this is ill advised due to the danger of space running out quickly after saving a couple of worlds You may need more space if there are mods, larger worlds or texture packs installed.

Instructions for Windows
WARNING: If anything in the following guides is not done correctly, Minecraft may crash or fail to start

Setup
All folder and file names in the Windows guide are case sensitive. This section will guide you on copying your game data (worlds, saves data, resource packs, server list, etc.) onto the portable drive. If you do not want to copy your game data, you may skip this section.
 * 1) Insert your drive into your computer, and open it.
 * 2) Create a folder, name it Minecraft Portable and enter the folder.
 * 3) In Minecraft portable, create two new folders and name them Launcher and Data. Use the exact names specified.
 * 4) Add the launcher/client to the portable drive:
 * 5) Download the Minecraft launcher.
 * 6) *You can download it from this direct link or by visiting the Minecraft Downloads page.
 * 7) *Make sure you use the "Minecraft for Windows (alternative)" version. This can be found by clicking on "Try an alternative download" on the page.
 * 8) Copy the Minecraft.exe to the Launcher folder that you have created on the portable drive.

The .minecraft folder contains all of your current game data. Now that all the data files are in the directory, a batch file will need to be created. set appdata= D:\Games\PortableMinecraft\Data\ start Launcher\Minecraft.exe pause set appdata= D:\Games\PortableMinecraft\Data\ java -jar Launcher\Minecraft.jar pause 3. Now click File > Save As ...
 * Press +
 * type %appdata% and click OK.
 * Locate your .minecraft folder and copy it
 * Copy the .minecraft folder and paste it into the Data folder
 * 1) Open Notepad.
 * 2) Copy and paste the following
 * If you would like to use Minecraft.jar, copy and paste this instead:

4. Navigate into your Minecraft Portable folder (not Data).

5. Name this file "StartMinecraft.bat"

Note: Make sure not to include the quotation marks ("") and choose "All Files" for the "Save As Type" field, or else Notepad will try to correct it to StartMinecraft.bat.txt and it will open as a text file rather than an executable script.

If you are getting an error stating that the system cannot find Minecraft.exe/.jar, use this script if you are using Minecraft.exe. set appdata= D:\Games\PortableMinecraft\Data\ cd "D:\Launcher" start Minecraft.exe pause

Use this script if you are using Minecraft.jar. set appdata= D:\Games\PortableMinecraft\Data\ cd "D:\Launcher" java -jar Launcher\Minecraft.jar pause

Additional Notes

 * To install resource packs or mods onto the portable drive, use the .minecraft folder of that portable drive.
 * If you would like to have multiple .minecraft ("Data") folders in order to quickly switch to an older version of Minecraft or play with mods, make multiple "Data" folders, with different names ("1.6.4", "Modded", and so forth) and a batch file for each one. You may have to make a second "Drive" folder if you want to use 1.5.2 or before, as that uses an older launcher.

Setup
Assume that the portable drive is at /dev/sdb1 and that Minecraft is installed at ~/games/.minecraft. Run the following in a terminal: umount /dev/sdb1 mkdir /media/minecraft mount /dev/sdb1 /media/minecraft mkdir /media/minecraft/games # If there is a folder called games in your portable drive, skip this command cp -rn ~/games/.minecraft /media/minecraft/ # This might take a while cd umount /dev/sdb1 rm /media/minecraft # Check to make sure that your portable drive is not mounted! After that, to launch Minecraft, enter the following in the terminal with superuser privileges. umount /dev/sdb1 mkdir ~/games # If there is a folder called games in your home directory, skip this command mount /dev/sdb1 ~/games # You will not be able to play any games that are saved in the ~/games directory Run the Minecraft launcher to start playing.
 * Note: You may need to use a different directory name depending on your distribution and set-up.
 * Note: The following commands require may require superuser privileges. Make sure you are running these as root or are using sudo.
 * Note: Text following the # symbol are comments, and can be omitted for that line.
 * Note: 'cd ~/.minecraft/' is the same as 'cd /home/user/.minecraft/'

Or use this script: mv ~/.minecraft ~/.minecraft.bak cp -a minecraft ~/.minecraft java -jar minecraft.jar mv minecraft minecraft.bak cp -a ~/.minecraft minecraft rm -r minecraft.bak rm -r ~/.minecraft mv ~/.minecraft.bak ~/.minecraft

Setup

 * Locate your Minecraft files. Press Command+Shift+G while in finder and then paste ~/Library/application support/minecraft into the dialog.
 * Copy that minecraft folder in your application support folder.
 * Insert in your portable drive and make 2 folders in it, named Data and Launcher.
 * Paste your minecraft folder into the "data" folder in the portable drive.
 * Drag your launcher into the "launcher" folder
 * Remove your portable drive

Playing
Once you are done setting up, you can test if your Minecraft can start on another Mac. Or use this script: mv ~/Library/Application Support/.minecraft ~/Library/Application Support/.minecraft.bak cp -a minecraft ~/Library/Application Support/.minecraft open Minecraft.app mv minecraft minecraft.bak cp -a ~/Library/Application Support/.minecraft minecraft rm -r minecraft.bak rm -r ~/Library/Application Support/.minecraft mv ~/Library/Application Support/.minecraft.bak ~/Library/Application Support/.minecraft
 * Insert your portable drive into another Mac to test
 * Open the launcher folder and move the Minecraft launcher into your Applications folder.
 * Double click the launcher to run it. Then after Minecraft loads, exit it.
 * Again, go to Users/USERNAME/Library/Application Support
 * In "Application Support", delete the minecraft folder.
 * Move the minecraft folder in your data folder on your portable drive to the desktop.
 * Then drag it from your desktop into application support.
 * Run Minecraft again.

Alternitave Methods
WARNING: The following methods will only work in Windows.

Cryshal's Method
Doesn't work, minecraft still runs from the appdata folder, Minecraft Profile Manager is useless, and java will not run from the flash drive.

Instructions
 * First, create a folder named, say, "Flash MC". Then, go on over to get jPortable which lets you run Java right on your flash drive, without it being installed on the computer.


 * You will want to install that onto your flash drive in a directory like \Flash MC\jPortable.


 * Then, go to Minecraft Profile Manager's thread, and download it.
 * Put it into your Portable MC folder. Follow the instructions. (Put minecraft.exe into the same folder that it is in)
 * You should now be able to launch MPM, make a profile and download all the needed Minecraft files to play.

HiWiki's Method
Instructions SET appdata=%CD%\data bin\minecraft.exe SET appdata=%CD%\data bin\minecraft.jar SET appdata=%CD%\data bin\ . Additional notes
 * 1) Make two folders named bin and data
 * 2) Place the Minecraft client inside bin folder
 * 3) If you use a .jar it will still be placed in the bin folder
 * 4) Press +  to open run and type in the dialog box %appdata% then copy the .minecraft folder (Also include other folders that also included in minecraft such as .aether)
 * 5) Select those folders then press +  (or  +  if you want to move the files rather than copy it)
 * 6) Go into Notepad and copy\paste the following:
 * But if you use a Jar, put this instead:
 * And if you use a Jar/Exe with a different name such as Minecraft-launcher put this
 * Then you are all done!
 * You will need Java for this, but if you also want java in your Flash/Thumb/USB drive, see the section titled Add Portable Java below.
 * Any data you have in your .minecraft in appdata will also be in your Flash/Thumb/USB drive

Portable Java Variant
You will need an extra 500MB in your Drive for this to work!

Now you have done the above, time to add portable Java! How to open jPortable Issues and how to fix them Credits
 * 1) Click here.
 * 2) Then open PortableApps.com_Platform_Setup_11.2.exe then wait until you see the add apps section
 * 3) *Make sure you place the setup in the Flash/Thumb/USB drive!
 * 4) Then in utilities find and tick the boxes jPortable, jPortable Launcher, jPortable Browser switch then press install
 * 5) Then wait for it to install then after that, your'e done!
 * First, find the folder PortableApps in your Flash/Thumb/USB drive
 * Then double click start, Then press jPortable Launcher
 * A window will open, then find the jar (Don't worry if it shows jar can be opened only change it to all files then find your exe)
 * Then after that press open then your minecraft will open
 * The minecraft directory is not there, if that happens then press edit profile then find and locate your data folder in file explorer then right click it then press properties
 * Also in the edit profile window tick the Game directory box
 * Now a window should open, so you will Select the text by dragging in the Location Line then paste it in the Game directory box then include this \.minecraft or paste it in the Game directory box

This part was made by HiWiki. If there are any issues in this guide, please PM that user. The original source can be found in this thread.

Changing the launcher file to use an autorun script

If you are using an autorun.inf instead of using set appdata=%CD%\data bin\minecraft.exe or set appdata=%CD%\data bin\minecraft.jar change the file to this: set appdata="Minecraft portable\data" cd "Minecraft portable\drive\" Minecraft.jar Save the file as "Autorun.inf" (do NOT save it as Autorun.inf.txt)

Video Tutorial
A video tutorial showing the step-by-step procedure on how to make Minecraft portable and run it from a USB thumb drive without Java installed