Help on created folders

[Michael Fanny]

Hello everyoned.

I installed MySQL on Windows 2012 using mysql-installer-community-5.6.16.0.msi and everything went smoothly.

Two paths were needed during installation, "Installation Path" and "Data Path".

I kept the default for both.

When installation was complete, I noticed that TWO data folders were created, located here:

1. C:\Program Files\MySQL\MySQL Server 5.6\data
2. C:\ProgramData\MySQL\MySQL Server 5.6\data

The one in "ProgramData" is the one my.ini is referencing and I would appreciate it if you could help me understand what is the different between these two folders.

I mean, what would have happened had I decided to change the paths to:

Installation: c:\mysql
Data: c:\mysql\data

There would have been a conflict?

PS: Speaking of my.ini, this file is also retrieved from the "ProgramData" location:
C:\ProgramData\MySQL\MySQL Server 5.6\my.ini

Thank you.



Edited 5 time(s). Last edit at 02/26/2014 07:09AM by Michael Fanny.