A Windows operating system such as Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2003, or Windows Server 2008. Both 32-bit and 64-bit versions are supported.

In addition to running MySQL as a standard application, you can also run the MySQL server as a Windows service. By using a service you can monitor and control the operation of the server through the standard Windows service management tools. For more information, see Section 2.5.5.6, “Starting MySQL as a Windows Service”.

Generally, you should install MySQL on Windows using an account that has administrator rights. Otherwise, you may encounter problems with certain operations such as editing the PATH environment variable or accessing the Service Control Manager. Once installed, MySQL does not need to be executed using a user with Administrator privileges.

TCP/IP protocol support.

Enough space on the hard drive to unpack, install, and create the databases in accordance with your requirements (generally a minimum of 200 megabytes is recommended.)

If you plan to connect to the MySQL server via ODBC, you need a Connector/ODBC driver. For more information, including installation and configuration instructions, see Section 21.1, “MySQL Connector/ODBC”.

If you plan to use MySQL server with .NET applications, you need the Connector/NET driver. For more information, including installation and configuration instructions, see Section 21.2, “MySQL Connector/NET”.

Binary installer distribution. The installable distribution comes packaged as a Microsoft Windows Installer (MSI) package that you can install manually or automatically on your systems. Two formats are available, an essentials package that contains all the files you need to install and configure MySQL, but no additional components, and a complete package that includes MySQL, configuration tools, benchmarks and other components. For more information on the specific differences, see Section 2.5.2, “Choosing An Installation Package”

For instructions on installing MySQL using one of the MSI installation packages, see Section 2.5.3, “Installing MySQL with the MSI Package”.

Standard binary distribution format packaged as a Zip file containing all of the necessary files that you unpack into your chosen location. This package contains all of the files in the full Windows MSI Installer package, but does not including an installation program.

For instructions on installing MySQL using the Zip file, see Section 2.5.5, “Installing MySQL from a noinstall Zip Archive”.

The source distribution contains all the code and support files for building the executables using the Visual Studio compiler system.

For instructions on building MySQL from source on Windows, see Section 2.5.10, “Installing MySQL from Source on Windows”.

Large Table Support

If you need tables with a size larger than 4GB, install MySQL on an NTFS or newer file system. Don't forget to use MAX_ROWS and AVG_ROW_LENGTH when you create tables. See Section 12.1.17, “CREATE TABLE Syntax”.

MySQL and Virus Checking Software

Using virus scanning software such as Norton/Symantec Anti-Virus on directories containing MySQL data and temporary tables can cause issues, both in terms of the performance of MySQL and the virus-scanning software mis-identifying the contents of the files as containing spam. This is because of the fingerprinting mechanism used by the virus scanning software, and the way in which MySQL rapidly updates different files, which may be identified as a potential security risk.

After installing MySQL Server, it is recommended that you disable virus scanning on the main directory (datadir) being used to store your MySQL table data. There is usually a system built into the virus scanning software to allow certain directories to be specifically ignored during virus scanning.

In addition, by default, MySQL creates temporary files in the standard Windows temporary directory. To prevent the temporary files also being scanned, you should configure a separate temporary directory for MySQL temporary files and add this to the virus scanning exclusion list. To do this, add a configuration option for the tmpdir parameter to your my.ini configuration file. For more information, see Section 2.5.5.2, “Creating an Option File”.