For those of us using macOS, there are some additional things that we need to be aware of. We're making this more prominent in hopes to reduce the number of questions we get that can be solved by going here.

Make sure Adoptium 17 is installed. Recommended way is in the link above.

Make sure the decompressed files are NOT in the Documents, Downloads, or Desktop folders. These are protected folders and macOS will not let it run.

To run the programs from Windows, just double-click on the given program icon from within the folder you unzipped.

Depending on how Java is setup on your machine, you may also be able to double click on the JAR files themselves vs the EXE. No real difference between the two other than possible launching experience.

DO NOT USE THE BUILTIN UTILITY FOR DECOMPRESSING ZIP FILES! We recommend using 7-Zip.

The Unix/Linux releases do not include application binaries, but you can run the programs directly from the included JAR files. On some desktops, you may just be able to double-click these JAR files in order to run the programs. you can also run the programs (MegaMek, in the example below) from the command line with the command:

java -jar MegaMek.jar &

When updating between versions, it is important to always use a new folder for the new version, make backups of all campaigns and custom files, and COPY campaigns and custom files to the new folder. Updating to a newer version is NOT backwards compatible and could break things.

We recommend that most users download and use the milestone version of the programs to minimize issues with bugs. The development versions are only for those users interested in testing and bug hunting new features.

To install the programs, unzip the download into the directory of your choice. To run the programs follow the platform specific instructions below.

On Windows, do NOT use the built in utility for decompression zip files as it has been known to cause issues. We recommend using 7-Zip.