# 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:

1. pcgenXXX_full.zip : everything including GMGen and PDF, best installed in new directory.
2. pcgenXXX_partial.zip : everything except the GMGen plugins.
3. pcgenXXX_win_install.exe : A Windows specific installer.
4. pcgenXXX_mac_install.dmg : A Macintosh specific installer.

Where XXX is the version number of PCGen (e.g. 5140 for version 5.14.0.)

The platform specific installers are the same PCGen version everyone else is using, just packaged with installers which target Windows and Mac OSX users specifically. Typically there is a gap between when the official release is done and when these special installers are ready.