| If you are developing web applications such as
Blogs and Content Management Systems (CMS), it is
useful to install the software on your PC for local
development. Many of the most popular web applications
are written in PHP and make use of the MySQL database.
For local development, you will need PHP, MySQL and
a server. Many web hosts - including those running
Linux - will have PHP, MySQL and the Apache Server
installed. Here we explain how to install MySQL on
a Windows-based PC. Before doing this, you may want
to follow our guide to installing
the Apache Server.
Optionally, you may also want to follow our guide
to installing PHP. |
The MySQL main site is at http://www.mysql.com/ and
from here you can navigate to the download page for the
current version which, at the time of writing, is version
4.1 whose download page is found at: http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/mysql/4.1.html
You will need to scroll some way down this page to
locate the Windows installers. You can either download
the complete MySQL package (about 37MB) or the Windows
Essentials package (about 16.5MB). The complete package
contains extra tools for database developers but these
are not required for our purposes. For most people, therefore,
the smaller Windows Essentials download file is the one
to get.
You should click the ‘Pick A Mirror’ link
alongside the Windows Essentials download option. You
will then be shown a questionnaire which you can fill
out if you wish. If you don’t
wish to do so, just scroll down the page and pick a regional
download site. Click a link and save the file (currently
named mysql-essential-4.1.14-win32.msi) to any convenient
directory on your disk.
Once the download has completed, run the program by
selecting Open in the download dialog, if it is still
visible, or by double-clicking the installation file
via Windows Explorer.
The first page of the Setup Wizard will now appear.
Click the Next button.
The Typical setup is fine if you want to install into
the default directory. If you want to choose a specific
directory, select Custom
You can either leave the Typical setup option selected
if you are happy to install the software into the default
directory C:\Program Files\MySQL\MySQL
Server 4.1\. If
you want to install to some other directory, however,
select Custom. Then click Next.
If you are doing a Typical installation you will now
be asked to confirm the default options. If you are doing
a Custom installation you should highlight the top item,
MySQL Server, and click the Change button. Now navigate
to, or enter the name of, your chosen target directory.
In my case, I have chosen: F:\windev\MySQL.
This directory will now automatically be selected for
the installation of any additional features and you don't
need to select the Client Programs item. So click Next.
The Custom Setup (if you choose this) lets you pick an
installation directory
When you see the screen stating ‘Ready To Install
the Program’, verify that the destination folder
is correct, then click the Install button.
Whether you are doing a
Typical or a Custom installation, you will eventually
arrive at this dialog.
Time to click Install
You will now be prompted to create a new MySQL account.
This will let you receive news of changes and updates.
However, it isn’t an essential part of the software
installation and you can sign up at a later time if you
wish. For the sake of simplicity, I’ll select the
Skip Sign-up option and click Next.
You can sign up if you like but this is not relevant
to the installation process
The Wizard Completed dialog now appears. Click the
Finish button.
The Wizard Completed dialog is just the beginning....!
In fact, as you will discover, this isn’t the
end of the installation after all…
A new screen pops up welcome you to the MySQL Server
Instance Configuration Wizard. Click Next. Assuming that
this is the first time you’ve installed MySQL on
this machine, you can select Standard Configuration (if
you are upgrading from an older version of MySQL you
need to select Detailed Configuration – that is
beyond the scope of our simple setup guide). Click Next.
Select the Standard Configuration and click Next
In the next dialog, leave the default options selected
(i.e. Install As Windows Service; Service
Name = ‘MySQL’ and
Launch the MySQL Server automatically). Then click Next.
Make sure you select the
options shown in this dialog
In the next screen, leave ‘Modify Security Settings’ checked
and enter the same password into the first
two text fields. You will need this password later so
remember it or write it down in a secure location. If
you may need to access MySQL from another computer you
can check ‘Enable
root access from remote machines’. Then click Next.
Choose any password - as
long as you can remember it!
The next screen just gives you some information about
the tasks that are about to be performed. Click the Execute
button.
This screen tells you what the setup program is about
to do. Press the 'Execute' button
When everything is installed this screen appears:
Click
Finish.
And that’s it!
Just to test that everything’s working, you can
open the MySQL command line client. You can do this from
the MySQL group on the Windows start menu. A ‘DOS
box’ will appear and you will be prompted to enter
your password:
Once you’ve entered this, you will
be welcomed to the MySQL monitor with a mysql> prompt.
Enter \h for some help. Enter quit to exit.
If you plan
to use MySQL with PHP, refer to our PHP
installation guide.
|
Note that PHP 5 does
not automatically support MySQL. To add MySQL support,
do the following:
--- Make sure you have php.ini in
your \Windows directory (as explained in our PHP
installation guide)
--- Edit php.ini in Notepad.
Make sure the following line is uncommented (or
added). To uncomment, delete the
semi-colon at the start of the line:
extension=php_mysql.dll
--- Search for the extension_dir entry and
add the path to your php extension (\ext)
subdirectory, which should already exist. e.g.
extension_dir
= "G:\php5\ext"
--- Ensure that your PHP extension directory
contains the two files, php_msyql.dll and php_mysqli.dll.
These should be installed by default. In principle,
your main PHP directory (in my case, that's G:\php5)
should be on the system path and it should contain
the two files, libmysql.dll and libmysqli.dll.
In fact, as explained in our PHP installation guide,
libmysqli.dll is not provided with
some versions of PHP and you may need to download
it separately. You should now be able
to restart your server and everything should be fine
and dandy. In practice, PHP may complain that it
cannot find the 'specified module'...
DLL Hell! You know the file is there. You can see it's there. But PHP still can't find it.
After
several hours of tearing out our hair we came
up with a fix for this problem.
Let's just hope
it works for you too...
We fixed this problem
by copying libmysql.dll and libmysqli.dll to
the \Windows\System32 directory.
Then restart Apache...
To restart the Apache server, find its icon (the
one with the green arrowhead) to the right of
the Windows toolbar, left-click and pick Restart
from the menu
|
See also, our Guide
To WAMP - Windows-Apache-MySQL-PHP
October 2005 |
