I've got a 4 GB SanDisk Cruzer here with practically nothing on it, and I'm about to go house-sit for a friend with a computer but no internet. It sure would be nice to play Minecraft while he's away, but I'd just as soon not muck around in his Documents and Settings\Application Files folders.
Is it possible to have Minecraft and my world on the flash drive itself such that I can play it directly from the drive, rather than installing to each computer I bring it to?
Best Answer
PortableApps hosts a Minecraft Portable launcher that will run off a USB stick, though you have to run it once for it to download and store the data and binaries from minecraft.net (as required by the Minecraft end-user license). I haven't tested it, but it claims to use the native launcher to be forward-compatible as new versions of Minecraft are released.
On the Minecraft Forums, there is a Java-based portable launcher that explicitly advertises compatibility with version 1.8.
There is also an article about creating a Windows batch file by hand that will make Minecraft look for its files and your saves on a USB key.