Hi,

I've run into a brick wall trying to install MySQL v5.5 on my machine.

My PC is Windows 7 x64, Enterprise edition.

MySQL installs fine, but when I run the "MySQL Instance Configuration Wizard", it pauses forever on the step "Start Service" (I can let it run for 30 minutes with no response). If I go into services, I see that the "MySQL" service hasn't started, and if I try to start it, it says "Windows could not start MySQL Service on Local Computer. Error 1067: The process terminated unexpectedly."

I've tried the following:

• Turning off firewall.
• Uninstalling all antivirus software.
• Installing / reinstalling 32-bit version of MySQL.
• Installing / reinstalling 64-bit version of MySQL.
• Uninstalling, deleting the contents of "C:\program files\MySQL" and "C:\program files (x86)\MySQL", reinstalling.
• Checking to see that there is no rogue services named MySQL???? (from a previous install).
• Checking that port 3306 is not used by an alternate program.
• Changing the default port that MySQL uses.
• Checking for "my.ini" and "my.ini.cnf" in "C:\windows" (nothing there but that can cause a problem).
• Running both MySQL installer, and configuration wizard, in "Adminstrator mode".
• Turning off UAC.
• Installing with defaults, not changing anything.
• Rebooting my machine (about 6 reboots so far).
• Opening up port 3306 in the firewall (both TCP and UDP, inbound and outbound).
• Swearing at the klutz of a programmer who designed MySQL so you can't even install it (as if that would help!)

My machine is working 100% in every other way. InfiniDB (a MySQL compatible database) installs 100%, as does Visual Studio 2010, Microsoft SQL Server, etc, etc.

Your advice on how to work around this?

p.s. Here is the screen it got stuck on for 15 minutes until I killed the process:

Update 2010-12-20

Tried MySQL v5.1, it didn't work either. Its amazing - if you type "mysqld /?", or "mysqld -help", it doesn't give you any help. And, if you try to restart the service manually, it doesn't display any error messages. Could it be any more unhelpful?

Update 2010-12-21

Installed MySQL 6.0 alpha, and it worked. However, I'd rather not use an alpha release, given that the "stable" release is anything but :(

Update 2010-12-21

Found http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.1/en/windows-troubleshooting.html, dealing with troubleshooting under Windows.

Discovered that you can generate an error log if the service doesn't start - see here: http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.1/en/error-log.html