Upgrading MySQL under Windows

When upgrading MySQL under Windows, please follow these steps:

  1. Download the latest Windows distribution of MySQL.

  2. Choose a time of day with low usage, where a maintenance break is acceptable.

  3. Alert the users that still are active about the maintenance break.

  4. Stop the running MySQL Server (for example, with NET STOP MySQL or with the Services utility if you are running MySQL as a service, or with mysqladmin shutdown otherwise).

  5. Exit the WinMySQLAdmin program if it is running.

  6. Run the installation script of the Windows distribution, by clicking the "Install" button in WinZip and following the installation steps of the script.

    Important note: Early alpha Windows distributions for MySQL 4.1 do not contain any installer program. See Windows binary installation for instructions on how to install such a distribution.

  7. You may either overwrite your old MySQL installation (usually located at C:\mysql), or install it into a different directory, such as C:\mysql4. Overwriting the old installation is recommended.

  8. Restart the server (for example, with NET START MySQL if you run MySQL as a service, or by invoking mysqld directly otherwise).

  9. Update the grant tables. The procedure is described in Upgrading-grant-tables.

Possible error situations:

 A system error has occurred.
 System error 1067 has occurred.
 The process terminated unexpectedly.
 

This error means that your my.cnf file (by default C:\my.cnf) contains an option that cannot be recognized by MySQL. You can verify that this is the case by trying to restart MySQL with the my.cnf file renamed, for example, to my_cnf.old to prevent the server from using it. Once you have verified it, you need to identify which option is the culprit. Create a new my.cnf file and move parts of the old file to it (restarting the server after you move each part) until you determine which option causes server startup to fail.