Extracting files from a .jar file with the jar command

If you have a JAR ("Java archive") file and wish to extract the files contained within it from a command-line interface (CLI) on a Microsoft Windows system, you can do so by opening a command prompt window and using the jar xf filename.jar command, where filename.jar is the relevant .jar file, if you have the Java Development Kit (JDK) installed on the system — the JDK software can be downloaded for free from Oracle's Java Downloads page.

Minecraft uses .jar files for mods and if you wish to view the models (.json files), textures (.png files) within a JAR file used by Minecraft, you can use the jar xf filename.jar command to see those. If you copy the .jar file to a directory where you wish to extract its contents and then run the command from the directory in which the .jar file is located, you should see a directory named assets appear beneath which you can find blockstates, lang, models, and textures subdirectories. The .json files files, such as those you may see in a models/block subdirectory are JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) files, which you can view or edit in a text editor, such as the Windows Notepad application. The .png files, which you may see in a textures subdirectory are Portable Network Graphics (PNG) files, which you can view or edit in graphics applications such as Microsoft Paint on Microsoft Windows systems. You can also use a tool such as Blockbench to work with the JSON model files and PNG images.

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Minecraft libraries failed to download

When I tried to install Minecraft on a Microsoft Windows system using the Windows Installer file I had downloaded, I saw the error message "These libraries failed to download. Try again. org.ow2.asm:asm-all:5.2."

I then clicked on the link for "Installer" rather than "Windows Installer on the website from which I had downloaded the installation file, which resulted in a .jar file being downloaded. I right-clicked on the .jar file, forge-1.12.2-14.23.5.2768-installer.jar, and chose "Open with" then "Java(TM) Platform SE binary". I was then able to install the Minecraft client. When the client was successfully installed, I saw the message "Successfully installed client profile forger for version forge 1.12.2-14.23.5.2768 into launcher and grabbed 1 required libraries."

Note: These are notes from an October 12, 2019 installation that I hadn't posted, but I am posting now in case I encounter a similar error again.

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Minecraft memory usage

You can control the amount of memory used by Java for the Minecraft sandbox video game by setting parameters in the server_start.bat file located in the directory where the Minecraft software was installed. To reduce the contention of the Minecraft server with other software running on the system for the system's memory, you can specify the maximum memory it will consume with a Xmx parameter. E.g., the following example uses a server_start.bat file where the maximum of memory that Java will use for running the game software is 1 gigabyte (GB)

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