problems with new WIN-installer

[Peter Laursen]

MySQL just released MySQL 3.1.5 (gamma). With it comes a new installer for Windows. It also introduces a new default concept of where to install the server binaries (program files\mysql and not c:\mysgl) and a new organization of the windows' registry keys used by MySQL. It all seems to be a reasonable bringing things up-to-date.

However in my case it won't work. I uninstall previous version, install 3.1.5, run the configuration wizard and concludingly start the server. So far so good. However my base is somewhere else in the directory tree, so I'll have to edit the my.cnf file. I cant do that using Notepad (or another text-editor) or MySQLAdministrator. For the changes to take effekt I must stop and restart the server. BUT AFTER HAVING BEEN STOPPED, the server won't start again. Error message something like "Can't connect to server instance". I can start the configurator, and start the server as before but still then it is the standard path to the data-dir that's active and that's no use ...

Also after a reboot I can't connecct to the server using either MySQLAdministrator, SQLYog or ODBC. Again I'll have to reconfigure and start the server from the configuration program.

Using the "No-Install" downloadble version however is OK. Just stopping and removing the server (using WinMySQLAdmin), replace the directories containing the binaries and installing and starting the service again works fine. My old "my.ini"file in the \windows-directory would still be in control.

I'd like to know about other users' experience (good or bad) using the version with the new installer ?
In case experience is GOOD, I also would like to know whether MySQL is installed for the first time, or an older version was installed previously and if you did something particularly ....

I'm suspicious that the old version doesn't uninstall completely, because of poor quality of the related installation program. Some years ago (caused by a major MySQL update) I spent a couple of hours cleaning the registry of all traces of an old installation, and I really wouldn't like to do that again ...