Mojang allows players to host their Minecraft servers by using a server JAR file. By Minecraft hosting your Minecraft server you are able to change servers settings and play with friends.

The first thing you will need to do is open your command prompt and find out what version of Java is installed on your computer. You can just install a newer version, but running the “java -version” command will allow you to confirm that you are using Java 7.

The final step is to download the Minecraft_Server.exe file which will initialize the JAR file within Windows with the appropriate parameters. Download is available on the official Minecraft website.

If you want to change the allocated RAM (server memory) you can create a batch file that will launch Minecraft_Server.exe. Just open Notepad and paste the following line of code:

64bit as

“C: Program Files (x86)Javajre7binjavaw.exe” -Xms1024m -Xmx1024m -jar “Minecraft_Server.exe”.

32bit as

“C: Program FilesJavajre7binjavaw.exe” -Xms1024m -Xmx1024m -jar “Minecraft_Server.exe”.

Replace 1024 with the amount of RAM you want to give your server in megabytes amd save the file as “start.bat”. You can use Google to do gigabyte to megabyte calculations. Opening this file will start your server.

After getting your server running you and connected friends on the same local network you can join the server by opening the Minecraft client and joining the server IP “localhost”. If you prefer to play with friends online, you need to port forward your router so that external connections can connect to your server. You can also install Hamachi, a program that gives you a public IP address. This is a complicated process and most residential internet connections cannot handle large numbers of players online.

To start configuring your server you can open the server.porperties file that was created when you first booted your Minecraft server. This file contains the main settings for your server, and after making changes you need to stop the server and restart it for the changes to take effect. Your server folder will also contain a file called ops.txt. This text file allows you to list the players who should have administrative rights on the server. After placing your username in the file, save it and restart the server. Your banned-players.txt list is a useful tool for combating malicious users, and the whitelist.txt file can be used to ban all players except those listed.