Administration-Related Issues --init-file=C:\\mysql-init.txt The appropriate  --defaults-file  setting can be found using the Services Manager: From the  Start menu, select  Control Panel , then  Administrative Tools , then  Services . Find the MySQL service in the list, right-click it, and choose the  Properties  option. The  Path to executable  field contains the  --defaults-file  setting. You should now be able to connect to the MySQL server as  root  using the new password. Stop the MySQL server and restart it normally. If you run the server as a service, start it from the Windows Services window. If you start the server manually, use whatever command you normally use. On Unix, use the following procedure to reset the password for the MySQL  ’root’@’localhost’ account. To change the password for a  root  account with a different host name part, modify the instructions to use that host name. The instructions assume that you start the MySQL server from the Unix login account that you normally use for running it. For example, if you run the server using the  mysql  login account, you should log in as mysql  before using the instructions. Alternatively, you can log in as  root , but in this case you  must  start mysqld  with the  --user=mysql  option. If you start the server as  root  without using  --user=mysql , the server may create  root -owned files in the data directory, such as log files, and these may cause permission-related problems for future server startups. If that happens, you must either change the ownership of the files to  mysql  or remove them. Stop the MySQL server by sending a normal  kill  (not  kill -9 ) to the  mysqld  process. Use the actual path name of the  .pid  file in the following command: Use backticks (not forward quotation marks) with the  cat  command. These cause the output of  cat  to be substituted into the  kill  command. The server executes the contents of the file named by the  init_file  system variable at startup, changing the  ’root’@’localhost’  account password. shell>  mysqld --init-file=/home/me/mysql-init & ALTER USER ’root’@’localhost’ IDENTIFIED BY ’MyNewPass’; shell>  kill ‘cat /mysql-data-directory/host_name.pid‘ Resetting the Root Password: Unix and Unix-Like Systems 7. After the server has started successfully, delete  C:\mysql-init.txt . 1. Log on to your system as the Unix user that the MySQL server runs as (for example,  mysql ). 2. Stop the MySQL server if it is running. Locate the  .pid  file that contains the server’s process ID. The exact location and name of this file depend on your distribution, host name, and configuration. Common locations are  /var/lib/mysql/ ,  /var/run/mysqld/ , and  /usr/local/mysql/data/ . Generally, the file name has an extension of  .pid  and begins with either  mysqld  or your system’s host name. 3. Create a text file containing the password-assignment statement on a single line. Replace the password with the password that you want to use. 4. Save the file. This example assumes that you name the file  /home/me/mysql-init . The file contains the password, so do not save it where it can be read by other users. If you are not logged in as  mysql (the user the server runs as), make sure that the file has permissions that permit  mysql  to read it. 5. Start the MySQL server with the  init_file  system variable set to name the file: 5300