# Pages in Installation

## Index : Installation of Java and PCGen

The following sections describe how to install Java and PCGen Manually for PC, Macintosh, and the UNIX and Linux varieties. The first section describes the steps for manually installing Java on your specific OS and how to determine what version you may have and which version to install. The later sections describes how to install PCGen directly from the zip files, and how to upgrade from a previous version. PCGen is distributed in 4 different versions: pcgenXXX_full.zip : everything including GMGen and PDF, best installed in new directory.

## Installing Java

PCGen 5.10.2 and higher requires Java version 1.5.0_x or higher. Previous versions (5.10.1 and below) will run under Java 1.4.x. On Windows Operating Systems Open Start Menu Open Programs select MS-DOS Prompt (Alternately, you can click Start, then Run, and type ‘command’ in the window and hit ok) type “java -version” (without the quotes) You need to see the following or something similar: java version "1.5.0_11" Java™ 2 Runtime Environment, Standard Edition (build 1.5.0_11-b03) Java HotSpot™ Client VM (build 1.5.0_11-b03, mixed mode) If you see a correct version of java, close the MS-DOS window and you should be able to run PCGen.

## Installing PCGen Manually

If you have PCGen currently installed on your system, you can either install the new version into a new directory or overwrite the old version on your system. The PCGen team recommends strongly that you install new versions into a new directory. Windows Users We recommend that you use the Windows installer. Mac Users We recommend that you use the OSX Mac Installer, pcgenXXX_mac_install.dmg . This configuration of the program includes all the necessary files included with the program package, or app file.

## Requirements for PCGen

All versions of PCGen need Sun’s Java Runtime Environment (JRE) which is available for all common OS’s, including Windows, Mac OS, UNIX and Linux. PCGen 5.10.2 (and above) needs to run under Sun’s JRE (Java) 1.5.x (or above). If you wish to view PDF output sheets, you’ll need a PDF viewer. Minimum RAM is 256MB (recommended 1-2GB) Minimum CPU is 1GHz (recommended 2Ghz+) 200MB of free HD space

## Upgrading PCGen

If you have PCGen Currently installed on your system, you can overwrite it with a newer version to maintain your settings and the location of your characters. This will unfortunately, unless you have taken precautions against it, also overwrite your homebrew datasets and gamemode folder. This page provides some guidance in how best to avoid these problems by helping you prepare your homebrew and custom data for transfer into an updated version of PCGen.

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