How to find the Minecraft version
Minecraft gets periodic updates, some big, some small. The larger updates add new mobs, structures, and blocks to the game while the smaller ones tend to be patches, fixes, and slight modifications to existing blocks. Most games encourage users to always keep them up to date but with Minecraft, the version number decides which online servers you can play on.
Minecraft version
If you want to know which is the current/latest version of Minecraft, you can visit the official Minecraft website. Check out the Release changelogs. Each log is accompanied by the version number. The highest version is the latest one. Make sure you pay attention to the Bedrock and the Java versions that are marked.
Find Minecraft version on your PC
If you have Minecraft installed on your system and you want to find out which version you have, it’s easy.
On the bedrock/UWP/Windows 10 versions;
- Open Minecraft.
- Look at the bottom right corner.
- The version number will be shown there.
On the Java version of Minecraft;
- Open Minecraft.
- Look at the bottom left corner.
- The version number will be shown there.
Change Minecraft version
If you have the Minecraft for Windows 10 i.e., the Bedrock version, you will always have to use the latest version. You can block the update by setting the Microsoft Store to not update apps automatically but once you’ve updated to a new version, there is no rolling back.
With Minecraft Java, or more precisely the launcher for the Java version, you can pick which version of Minecraft you want to use. This will allow you to play on servers that support an older version. When Minecraft updates, it rarely deprecates a block so you don’t risk losing parts of anything that you’ve built.
If you’ve built something in a world using newer blocks, and you go back to an older version, those blocks will not be there. They may or may not be replaced with alternative blocks so be careful.
There is a limit to how old a version of Minecraft Java you can run. You can go back a few versions but you cannot go years back. You won’t be able to find a server to play on, most mods, texture packs, resource packs etc will not work. More importantly, older versions will require older versions of Java to be installed as well.
Conclusion
Minecraft offers great cross play; players on consoles, computers, and mobile devices can all play together on the same server. The catch is that you need to keep the game up to date and only newer versions support the cross play feature.
