Joe, you are not used to using a command line interface, are you.... When you do a "START -> RUN -> cmd <enter>", you are entering the world of computing that exists outside of Windows (have you ever heard of DOS?). What you are in is called a "shell" and on windows it's called the "command shell" because it is supported by the program "command.exe" or "cmd.exe", depending on what version of windows you are using.
When you type something into a shell and hit enter, it tries to treat what you entered like a command or as the name of a file you want to execute. Examples of shell commands are: help, copy, dir, type, set, path Examples of some executable names on windows are: notepad, wordpad, regedit, mysql, mysqladmin, mysqldump Generally commands and file names are not case sensitive. This is true for Windows but definitely not so for other operating systems. A file must end in either ".exe" or ".com" or ".bat" in order for the command shell to treat it as an executable file. If the command shell does not understand what you typed as a built-in command, it looks in your current directory to see if it's an executable file. If it isn't there, it checks a whole list of other directories to see if one of the files in them matches the name you entered. You can see that list if you type the word PATH on the command line and hit enter. Please do that now... Read through this list carefully. Look for "c:\mysql\bin". If you are like everyone else, it isn't there. That means that if you type the command mysql and hit enter, the command shell can't find the file mysql.exe and run it because it looked everywhere it was supposed to look and couldn't find it. That's what the error message means. How to solve this: Make your "current" directory the directory where the mysql tools live. By convention, MySQL is usually installed to the folder "C:\mysql\" and the program files are in "C:\mysql\bin\". You move yourself into that folder with the CD command. CD stands for "change directory" and the one you probably need looks like this cd \mysql\bin Now your shell session is "in" the bin folder of the mysql folder. If you pull a file listing of this directory by typing DIR and hitting enter, you should see several files, one of them should be called "mysql.exe" If you type "mysql" on the command line and hit enter, the command shell will first look at is as an internal command (which it isn't) then start looking in the folders list to see if it's an executable. Because that file DOES exist in your current directory, the shell will find it, load it, and start executing the program. If you only type "mysql" and hit enter, you will attempt to connect to the server on your local machine as an anonymous user. To actually login to any server as an account with any kind of privileges you will need to use the -u option and probably the -p option. If you want to connect to a server on a different machine, use the -h option to specify which server to connect to. Here are some sample logins (assuming that the server daemon is already running): mysql -u root This will login to your local server attempting to connect as the mysql user "root" without using a password. This should let you connect to a "virgin" installation of MySQL mysql -u root -p Same as above except you will be prompted for a password. mysql -h localhost -p -u root Same as the previous command (the order in which the options appear is not important). This is the same command because the name "localhost" is a special name to indicate that you want to connect to the same machine. mysql -h prodserver.mydomain.net -u prodadmin -p This works just like the others: you are asking to connect to the mysql server on the machine at "prodserver.mydomain.net" as the mysql user "prodadmin" and you will be prompted to provide a password. If you specify your options correctly and the server to which you are attempting to connect likes the username you provided, the location you are connecting from, and the password (if you need one) then you should make it to the mysql> prompt. This should allow you to continue with the installation instructions (whichever set you are following). If you are NOT following a set of setup instructions, please refer to these: http://dev.mysql.com/doc/mysql/en/windows-installation.html HTH! Shawn Green Database Administrator Unimin Corporation - Spruce Pine "Joe Herman" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote on 09/02/2005 02:35:21 PM: > Thanks for your reply. > > I've done what you said. Unfortunately I get the message in the CMD > Window: > > 'MYSQLADMIN' is not a recognized as an internal or external command. > > Can you tell me what this means? I did run the installer earlier. Thank > you. > > Joe. > > -----Original Message----- > From: Eric Mynes [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Sent: Friday, September 02, 2005 12:35 PM > To: Joe Herman > Cc: mysql@lists.mysql.com > Subject: Re: Can't figure out how to get it running > > > The way I could tell that mysl is running is to (assuming that you are > running windows): > Click Start > Click Run > Type CMD > Press Enter > Type MYSQLADMIN PING > Press Enter > if you get the message "mysqld is alive", then it is running Thanks, > Eric Network Administrator > West Virginia Federal Credit Union > On 9/2/05, Joe Herman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > Hello, > > > > I am just getting started with MySql and PHP (previously was just > > designing web pages). I am very new to database-based web development. > > > > I installed IIS and PHP. I thought I installed MySQL as well but I > > can't tell if it is working or not. I was told if I make a phpinfo.php > > > file and open it my browser I would see. Supposedly if there is a > > listing for MySQL in the list that would mean it is running. There is > > no listing of MySQL there. There are listings for other PHP items > > however which I guess means PHP is running. > > > > I saw that in the bin folder of MySQL there is a program called > > MySQLadmin. Whenever I try to run that a small black screen flashes > > momentarily on my screen (kind of looking like a command line window) > > and then it disappears without giving me a chance to even see what it > > is. Actually this happens with every program in the bin folder. > > > > Would someone please tell me what I need to do to get MySQL to work? > > Right now I am just trying to set things up so that I can start > > learning PHP. Please help. > > > > Thank you. > > > > Joe Herman > > New York City > > > > > > -- > > MySQL General Mailing List > > For list archives: http://lists.mysql.com/mysql > > To unsubscribe: http://lists.mysql.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED] > > > > > > > -- > MySQL General Mailing List > For list archives: http://lists.mysql.com/mysql > To unsubscribe: http://lists.mysql.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED] >
