Chapter 5 Installing MySQL on Microsoft Windows

Table of Contents

MySQL Community 5.7 Server requires the Microsoft Visual C++ 2013 Redistributable Package to run on Windows platforms. Users should make sure the package has been installed on the system before installing the server. The package is available at the Microsoft Download Center.

MySQL is available for Microsoft Windows, for both 32-bit and 64-bit versions. For supported Windows platform information, see https://www.mysql.com/support/supportedplatforms/database.html.

If your operating system is Windows 2008 R2 or Windows 7 and you do not have Service Pack 1 (SP1) installed, MySQL 5.7 regularly restarts with the following message in the MySQL server error log file:

This error message occurs because you are also using a CPU that does not support the VPSRLQ instruction, indicating that the CPU instruction that was attempted is not supported.

To fix this error, you must install SP1. This adds the required operating system support for CPU capability detection and disables that support when the CPU does not have the required instructions.

Alternatively, install an older version of MySQL, such as 5.6.

There are different methods to install MySQL on Microsoft Windows.

MySQL Installer Method

The simplest and recommended method is to download MySQL Installer (for Windows) and let it install and configure all of the MySQL products on your system. Here is how:

Download MySQL Installer from https://dev.mysql.com/downloads/installer/ and execute it.

Unlike the standard MySQL Installer, the smaller «web-community» version does not bundle any MySQL applications but rather downloads the MySQL products you choose to install.

Choose the appropriate Setup Type for your system. Typically you should choose Developer Default to install MySQL server and other MySQL tools related to MySQL development, helpful tools like MySQL Workbench. Choose the Custom setup type instead to manually select your desired MySQL products.

Multiple versions of MySQL server can exist on a single system. You can choose one or multiple versions.

Complete the installation process by following the instructions. This installa several MySQL products and starts the MySQL server.

MySQL is now installed. If you configured MySQL as a service, then Windows automatically starts MySQL server every time you restart your system.

You probably also installed other helpful MySQL products like MySQL Workbench on your system. Consider loading MySQL Workbench to check your new MySQL server connection By default, this program automatically starts after installing MySQL.

This process also installs the MySQL Installer application on your system, and later you can use MySQL Installer to upgrade or reconfigure your MySQL products.

Additional Installation Information

It is possible to run MySQL as a standard application or as a Windows service. By using a service, you can monitor and control the operation of the server through the standard Windows service management tools. For more information, see Section 5.4.8, “Starting MySQL as a Windows Service”.

Generally, you should install MySQL on Windows using an account that has administrator rights. Otherwise, you may encounter problems with certain operations such as editing the PATH environment variable or accessing the Service Control Manager . When installed, MySQL does not need to be executed using a user with Administrator privileges.

For a list of limitations on the use of MySQL on the Windows platform, see Section 5.7, “Windows Platform Restrictions”.

In addition to the MySQL Server package, you may need or want additional components to use MySQL with your application or development environment. These include, but are not limited to:

To connect to the MySQL server using ODBC, you must have a Connector/ODBC driver. For more information, including installation and configuration instructions, see MySQL Connector/ODBC Developer Guide.

MySQL Installer installs and configures Connector/ODBC for you.

To use MySQL server with .NET applications, you must have the Connector/NET driver. For more information, including installation and configuration instructions, see MySQL Connector/NET Developer Guide.

MySQL Installer installs and configures MySQL Connector/NET for you.

MySQL distributions for Windows can be downloaded from https://dev.mysql.com/downloads/. See Section 2.3, “How to Get MySQL”.

MySQL for Windows is available in several distribution formats, detailed here. Generally speaking, you should use MySQL Installer. It contains more features and MySQL products than the older MSI, is simpler to use than the compressed file, and you need no additional tools to get MySQL up and running. MySQL Installer automatically installs MySQL Server and additional MySQL products, creates an options file, starts the server, and enables you to create default user accounts. For more information on choosing a package, see Section 5.2, “Choosing an Installation Package”.

A MySQL Installer distribution includes MySQL Server and additional MySQL products, including MySQL Workbench. MySQL Installer can also be used to upgrade these products in the future.

For instructions on installing MySQL using MySQL Installer, see Section 5.3, “MySQL Installer for Windows”.

The standard binary distribution (packaged as a compressed file) contains all of the necessary files that you unpack into your chosen location. This package contains all of the files in the full Windows MSI Installer package, but does not include an installation program.

The source distribution format contains all the code and support files for building the executables using the Visual Studio compiler system.

For instructions on building MySQL from source on Windows, see Chapter 4, Installing MySQL from Source.

MySQL on Windows Considerations

Large Table Support

If you need tables with a size larger than 4 GB, install MySQL on an NTFS or newer file system. Do not forget to use MAX_ROWS and AVG_ROW_LENGTH when you create tables. See CREATE TABLE Statement.

InnoDB tablespace files cannot exceed 4 GB on Windows 32-bit systems.

MySQL and Virus Checking Software

Virus-scanning software such as Norton/Symantec Anti-Virus on directories containing MySQL data and temporary tables can cause issues, both in terms of the performance of MySQL and the virus-scanning software misidentifying the contents of the files as containing spam. This is due to the fingerprinting mechanism used by the virus-scanning software, and the way in which MySQL rapidly updates different files, which may be identified as a potential security risk.

After installing MySQL Server, it is recommended that you disable virus scanning on the main directory ( datadir ) used to store your MySQL table data. There is usually a system built into the virus-scanning software to enable specific directories to be ignored.

In addition, by default, MySQL creates temporary files in the standard Windows temporary directory. To prevent the temporary files also being scanned, configure a separate temporary directory for MySQL temporary files and add this directory to the virus scanning exclusion list. To do this, add a configuration option for the tmpdir parameter to your my.ini configuration file. For more information, see Section 5.4.2, “Creating an Option File”.

Running MySQL on a 4K Sector Hard Drive

Running the MySQL server on a 4K sector hard drive on Windows is not supported with innodb_flush_method=async_unbuffered , which is the default setting. The workaround is to use innodb_flush_method=normal .

Mysql install service windows

On Windows, the recommended way to run MySQL is to install it as a Windows service, so that MySQL starts and stops automatically when Windows starts and stops. A MySQL server installed as a service can also be controlled from the command line using NET commands, or with the graphical Services utility. Generally, to install MySQL as a Windows service you should be logged in using an account that has administrator rights.

The Services utility (the Windows Service Control Manager ) can be found in the Windows Control Panel. To avoid conflicts, it is advisable to close the Services utility while performing server installation or removal operations from the command line.

Installing the service

Before installing MySQL as a Windows service, you should first stop the current server if it is running by using the following command:

If the MySQL root user account has a password, you need to invoke mysqladmin with the -p option and supply the password when prompted.

This command invokes the MySQL administrative utility mysqladmin to connect to the server and tell it to shut down. The command connects as the MySQL root user, which is the default administrative account in the MySQL grant system.

Users in the MySQL grant system are wholly independent from any operating system users under Windows.

Install the server as a service using this command:

The service-installation command does not start the server. Instructions for that are given later in this section.

To make it easier to invoke MySQL programs, you can add the path name of the MySQL bin directory to your Windows system PATH environment variable:

On the Windows desktop, right-click the My Computer icon, and select Properties .

Next select the Advanced tab from the System Properties menu that appears, and click the Environment Variables button.

Under System Variables , select Path , and then click the Edit button. The Edit System Variable dialogue should appear.

Place your cursor at the end of the text appearing in the space marked Variable Value . (Use the End key to ensure that your cursor is positioned at the very end of the text in this space.) Then enter the complete path name of your MySQL bin directory (for example, C:\Program Files\MySQL\MySQL Server 8.0\bin ), and there should be a semicolon separating this path from any values present in this field. Dismiss this dialogue, and each dialogue in turn, by clicking OK until all of the dialogues that were opened have been dismissed. You should now be able to invoke any MySQL executable program by typing its name at the DOS prompt from any directory on the system, without having to supply the path. This includes the servers, the mysql client, and all MySQL command-line utilities such as mysqladmin and mysqldump .

You should not add the MySQL bin directory to your Windows PATH if you are running multiple MySQL servers on the same machine.

You must exercise great care when editing your system PATH by hand; accidental deletion or modification of any portion of the existing PATH value can leave you with a malfunctioning or even unusable system.

The following additional arguments can be used when installing the service:

You can specify a service name immediately following the —install option. The default service name is MySQL .

If a service name is given, it can be followed by a single option. By convention, this should be —defaults-file= file_name to specify the name of an option file from which the server should read options when it starts.

The use of a single option other than —defaults-file is possible but discouraged. —defaults-file is more flexible because it enables you to specify multiple startup options for the server by placing them in the named option file.

You can also specify a —local-service option following the service name. This causes the server to run using the LocalService Windows account that has limited system privileges. If both —defaults-file and —local-service are given following the service name, they can be in any order.

For a MySQL server that is installed as a Windows service, the following rules determine the service name and option files that the server uses:

If the service-installation command specifies no service name or the default service name ( MySQL ) following the —install option, the server uses the service name of MySQL and reads options from the [mysqld] group in the standard option files.

If the service-installation command specifies a service name other than MySQL following the —install option, the server uses that service name. It reads options from the [mysqld] group and the group that has the same name as the service in the standard option files. This enables you to use the [mysqld] group for options that should be used by all MySQL services, and an option group with the service name for use by the server installed with that service name.

If the service-installation command specifies a —defaults-file option after the service name, the server reads options the same way as described in the previous item, except that it reads options only from the named file and ignores the standard option files.

As a more complex example, consider the following command:

Here, the default service name ( MySQL ) is given after the —install option. If no —defaults-file option had been given, this command would have the effect of causing the server to read the [mysqld] group from the standard option files. However, because the —defaults-file option is present, the server reads options from the [mysqld] option group, and only from the named file.

On Windows, if the server is started with the —defaults-file and —install options, —install must be first. Otherwise, mysqld.exe attempts to start the MySQL server.

You can also specify options as Start parameters in the Windows Services utility before you start the MySQL service.

Finally, before trying to start the MySQL service, make sure the user variables %TEMP% and %TMP% (and also %TMPDIR% , if it has ever been set) for the operating system user who is to run the service are pointing to a folder to which the user has write access. The default user for running the MySQL service is LocalSystem , and the default value for its %TEMP% and %TMP% is C:\Windows\Temp , a directory LocalSystem has write access to by default. However, if there are any changes to that default setup (for example, changes to the user who runs the service or to the mentioned user variables, or the —tmpdir option has been used to put the temporary directory somewhere else), the MySQL service might fail to run because write access to the temporary directory has not been granted to the proper user.

Starting the service

After a MySQL server instance has been installed as a service, Windows starts the service automatically whenever Windows starts. The service also can be started immediately from the Services utility, or by using an sc start mysqld_service_name or NET START mysqld_service_name command. SC and NET commands are not case-sensitive.

When run as a service, mysqld has no access to a console window, so no messages can be seen there. If mysqld does not start, check the error log to see whether the server wrote any messages there to indicate the cause of the problem. The error log is located in the MySQL data directory (for example, C:\Program Files\MySQL\MySQL Server 8.0\data ). It is the file with a suffix of .err .

When a MySQL server has been installed as a service, and the service is running, Windows stops the service automatically when Windows shuts down. The server also can be stopped manually using the Services utility, the sc stop mysqld_service_name command, the NET START mysqld_service_name command, or the mysqladmin shutdown command.

You also have the choice of installing the server as a manual service if you do not wish for the service to be started automatically during the boot process. To do this, use the —install-manual option rather than the —install option:

Removing the service

To remove a server that is installed as a service, first stop it if it is running by executing SC STOP mysqld_service_name or NET STOP mysqld_service_name . Then use SC DELETE mysqld_service_name to remove it:

Alternatively, use the mysqld —remove option to remove the service.

If mysqld is not running as a service, you can start it from the command line. For instructions, see Section 2.3.4.6, “Starting MySQL from the Windows Command Line”.

For more information about stopping or removing a Windows service, see Section 5.8.2.2, “Starting Multiple MySQL Instances as Windows Services”.