Minecraft on Windows XP

If the Windows XP subreddit is a good indicator, it feels like Windows XP is entering a renaissance period. XP-era games are just old enough to be considered “vintage”, and there’s even new development for Windows XP applications, like the web browser Supermium.

I’ve been dabbling with Windows XP on my EeePC 1005HA, a fantastic little netbook by ASUS that was the singular way for me and my friends to afford a “modern” laptop computer in early 2010’s. Back then, I alternated between Windows 7 and various flavors of Linux (conveniently swappable thanks to the bootable SD card slot), but for my EeePC today, XP seems like the most appropriate OS. A few weeks ago, I wanted to relive the experience of playing Minecraft at 15 fps show my kids what Minecraft was like back in the old days.

To run Minecraft on Windows XP, you need two things:

• A version of Java for Windows XP
• A Minecraft launcher for Windows XP

Java

For Java, this post on Reddit documented the last version that will install and work on Windows XP, which is Java 2017 version 152, which appears to be the same as Java 8 Update 152 that can be found on Internet Archive.

This version does give a warning about requiring a newer version of Windows, but installs without further complaint.

Minecraft Launcher

To launch Minecraft, I had great success with the latest version of MultiMC. I simply placed it in a folder, launched MultiMC, let it find Java, signed into my Microsoft account, and proceeded to download Minecraft 1.0.

That’s all it took! Now I just need to find a tree to punch.