Installation is great, just tell people how simple it is

[Sam Hobbs]

I had the latest production release installed but I encountered problems with MySQL.

When I installed MySQL the first time, it was quite confusing and frustrating to get MySQL to work. Since I was not sure I remembered all the details of what I did to get it to work, I decided it would be easier to uninstall and install fresh.

I decided to try version 5.0.1 so then I will know what the latest version is like. I used the "Typical" option for installing. I usually use the custom installation when installing anything, and perhaps that is why I had problems the first time. It installed very easily and worked immediately. The service got installed and started just fine. The only additional thing that could be done is to install (a shortcut to) winmysqladmin somepalce. A good place to (optionally) install a shortcut is the StartUp folder, so that winmysqladmin always gets started at system startup.

The main thing, though, is that there is a lot of documentation that is not relevant. It would help to be clear that a lot of it can be ignored when a "Typical" installation is done.

One thing that seems both superflous and erroneous is that little textbox that appears at the beginning of the installation. It says (this is most of it but not all):


----------------------------------------------- Begin quote
This is a release of MySQL 5.0.1-alpha for Win32.

NOTE: If you install MySQL in a folder other than
C:\MYSQL or you intend to start MySQL on NT/Win2000
as a service, you must create a file named C:\MY.CNF
or \Windows\my.ini or \winnt\my.ini with the following
information:

[mysqld]
basedir=E:/installation-path/
datadir=E:/data-path/

After your have installed MySQL, the installation
directory will contain 4 files named 'my-small.cnf,
my-medium.cnf, my-large.cnf, my-huge.cnf'.

You can use this as a starting point for your own
C:\my.cnf file.
----------------------------------------------- End quote


Whereas in fact, it is advisable to not use the MY.CNF file, correct? And for a "Typical" insallation, most of the talk about a MY.CNF and a my.ini file is unnecessarily confusing, to the extent that the "Typical" insallation creates a my.ini file and does not need much modification. I think I did modify it for PHP but that is all I had to change that I remember at the moment.

The important thing is that the "2.2.1.5 Starting the Server for the First Time", "2.2.1.6 Starting MySQL from the Windows Command Line" and "2.2.1.7 Starting MySQL as a Windows Service" are all not relevant to a "Typical" insallation. Also, the "2.2.1.8 Troubleshooting a MySQL Installation Under Windows" assumes there will be problems with the installation. I think that before providing troubleshooting instructions, it would help to first provide the instructions in "2.2.1.9 Running MySQL Client Programs on Windows". All that extra instructions are likely to make things more difficult in spite of the "Typical" insallation being easy.