How to Thaumcraft 1.7.10 using the Minecraft launcher

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So apparently it’s been a long while since I installed mods with the Minecraft launcher.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with the process, here is a worked and tested walkthrough to get Forge mods working on your client so you can enjoy modded Minecraft. 🙂

  1. Create a new folder for your modded Minecraft profile. This can be anywhere, including on your desktop (for easy access). For this example, I’m going to be playing Thaumcraft on a 1.7.10 server, so I should probably call it Thaumcraft 1.7.10 so I know what it is.
  2. Now open up the Minecraft launcher. Login if you need to, and then click New Profile at the bottom left.
  3. There are a lot of boxes and so on here. The first thing is to give this new profile a name, like 1.7.10 Thaumcraft for instance. Enter that next to where it says Profile Name.
  4. Next up, we want to tell Minecraft to look in a particular place for your profile. Unfortunately, Mojang in their infinite wisdom have not added a browse button here, so you’ll have to enter it manually. But before you do that, open that field up for editing by checking the box to the left of Game Directory.
  5. To get the game directory location (which is really just where your profile is to be found) open up that new folder that you made, and click in the location bar, where it currently shows Thaumcraft 1.7.10 (or the name of the folder you have chosen). It will now change to show you the true location, such as C:\Users\JohnDoe\Desktop\Thaumcraft 1.7.10. Highlight that (it should highlight by default when you do this) and copy (Ctrl-C).
  6. Switch back to the Minecraft profile you were editing, and highlight the default game directory (which you could actually use, if you don’t mind hunting for it). Paste in your preferred profile location (Ctrl-V).
  7. Now you need to specify the version of Minecraft that this profile is going to use. Click the dropdown arrow to the far right of Use version. For this example, I’m going to use version 1.7.10 so I’ll scroll down to where it says release 1.7.10 and click to choose that.
  8. That should about do it for the moment. Now, we save the changes to this profile by choosing Save Profile at the bottom right. If your new profile is not selected, select it now using the dropdown above new Profile and Edit Profile.
  9. At this point, if you’ve already played version 1.7.10 at some point in the distant past on this computer, the huge button at the bottom of the launcher should read Play. if not, it will read Download and Play. Click that now to get your profile folder set up for playing Minecraft. You’ll see the Mojang splash and then the Minecraft main menu.
  10. Exit Minecraft. Yeah, not done installing yet. Now go and download a Forge installer for your version of Minecraft. Enter files.minecraftforge.net in your browser.
  11. As of this post, there are versions of Forge for 1.8, 1.7 and all the way back to 1.1, but let’s get one for 1.7.10 – click on 1.7 and when you see 1.7.10 show in the menu under that, click that.
  12. This takes you to files.minecraftforge.net/maven/net/minecraftforge/forge/index_1.7.10.html and there you will see two boxes under the menu of versions. One will say Download Latest and the other will say Download Recommended. Unless you’re planning on trying out a mod which depends on a very new version of Forge, or you need a particular version to fix problems with your mods, you want to stick to the Recommended version.
  13. Under where it says Download Recommended, click Installer. Depending on your browser, this may attempt to run the installer straight away. If not, save the file to your Downloads folder, and then double-click it.
  14. This will bring up the Forge Installer (it’s a Java program which helps to install Forge). By default, Install Client will be selected. Don’t change this. In fact, you shouldn’t need to change anything here, just click OK to install Forge.
  15. When this is done, re-open your Minecraft launcher, You may need to close it and re-open it for the changes to take effect.
  16. Choose your new profile again (mine is called Thaumcraft 1.7.10) if it isn’t already selected in the bottom left of the launcher. Click on Edit Profile.
  17. There’s just one thing we need to do here and that is to change to use Forge for the version of Minecraft you want to install mods for. So for me, this reads as release 1.7.10-Forge10.13.4.1448-1.7.10 – click your desired version and then Save Profile to update your profile.
  18. So Forge will now run when you play Minecraft with that version, but Forge is just a framework for other mods – although it does add a few cool features by default, like a simple light level monster spawn overlay when you press F7.
  19. To download Thaumcraft 4 for example, I visit the download page at www.curse.com/mc-mods/minecraft/223628-thaumcraft and click Download Now.
  20. If your Minecraft server host has made a private modpack (this is a pack of mods which work for that server and a particular version of Forge) you can download from the location they give you instead.
  21. To use these mods with the profile you’ve made, you need to make a mods folder! Do this in the folder you made for the profile. It must be a folder called ‘mods.’
  22. To install your mods, open up the ZIP file for the modpack and copy (drag and drop, or copy and paste) all the files inside it to your mods folder.
  23. You shouldn’t need to extract any jar files (these are the files with the Java icon) to get mods to work.
  24. Now to test the profile, you should once again launch Minecraft using your new profile and the Play button. Mine is called Thaumcraft 1.7.10. Forge may now download some dependencies (files it needs to work) automatically using the Minecraft launcher.
  25. If all goes well, you will see the Mojang splash but there will be some more loading going on, with a visual indication of what is going on. Then you will arrive at the Minecraft main menu! In the bottom left you should see the version of Minecraft you are using, the MCP version, and the Forge version, and the number of mods which are currently loaded. For me this is 13 (I added a few extra client-friendliness mods besides Thaumcraft).
  26. You can now either create a new single-player world for Thaumcraft 4, or connect to a server which runs it (your server’s host will tell you the IP address of the server).
  27. To connect to a new server, click Multiplayer and then Add Server. Enter (you can copy-paste) the IP address under where it says Server Address and then click Done. You should now be able to connect!