The purpose of this tutorial is to take you through the process of installing MySQL 4 for Windows. This is very important, if you intend to use the PHP/MySQL Server Model within Dreamweaver MX.

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Installing and Testing MySQL 4 on Windows

Downloading MySQL

First, you need to go to the MySQL web site at www.mysql.com. find the downloads page, and locate the Windows installer download. Download this to your PC.

Locate the file and double-click on it. This is the easy bit. However, if you have a previous installation, it is safest to remove it completely. To do this, you should uninstall, using the Remove Programs option in the control panel. You should then restart your computer, and locate the mysql directory on the C drive, and delete it.

Once your new edition of MySQL is installed, the fun starts.

Installing MySQL

Locate the directory C:\mysql\bin\

In this directory, find the file winmysqladmin.exe and double-click on it.

You will probably be asked for a username and password. Supply whatever you like - this username and password will not be the same as the more important one that you will apply to the MySQL server.

You should now find that you have a traffic lights icon on green in the tray.

Right-clicking over this icon, and selecting Show Me will reveal the winmysqladmin control panel.

 

Switch to the my.ini tab, and select the max-nt file. This will enable you to use foreign keys in InnoDB tables, if you know what they are! To hide the admin application, right-click on it and select Hide Me. Don't use the X at the top right, as this will actually stop the MySQL server.

MySQL Terminal

Back in the bin folder, make a shortcut to the file mysql.exe (not mysqld.exe). Place this shortcut on your desktop. This will enable you to open the MySQL terminal easily. Try it now.

At the mysql prompt, we can type commands. All mysql users are held in a special configuration database, confusingly called mysql. In order to use this, type use mysql; at the prompt. The users are actually held in a table in this database, called user. So type in the following SQL. SELECT user, host, password FROM user;

This yields the required information from the table. You will only have the root and blank users to begin with. If you have a mysql book, you could now start messing around with the command line. However, I prefer to use a GUI at this point, to help configure MySQL. There are a number of GUIs available. My favourite is DBManager, available free from www.dbtools.com.br . In my next tutorial, we will get DBManager working, and start making new users for the server.

Paul Taylor