Re: Can't get MySQL 5.5 to install on Windows 7

[Chris Besant]

Barry:

It is some oversight in the installer, or someone added the NOT NULL attribute to the authentication_string column last minute and it didn't get tested. Obviously the wizard is inserting a row in the user table in the mysql database without an entry for the authentication_string column. This is not a unique error message -- happens any time you try to insert into any table, user or system, when a column is marked NOT NULL and the INSERT doesn't contain a value for that column.

This is not just a matter of Windows 7 -- happens under other OS's too. I've replicated the same issue under Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows Server 2003.

It's a simple issue. My judgement is that making the authentication_string column in the user table is just fine. If you're paranoid about it, you can always stick some value in there after the configuration wizard completes the security fixups and then make the authentication_string column NOT NULL again. Personally I'm going to leave it nullable. All I need is some other MySQL utility bombing because it wasn't tested against the version of the table with the NOT NULL authentication_string.

IMO "You really shouldn't be changing the table definitions in Mysql database" is a silly statement. One would not have gotten very far with MySQL in the past without learning to hack it. I believe most experienced MySQL DBA's manually munge the user table at will -- far too slow to add users manually in a lot of cases.

-- Chris