MySQL on Windows Considerations Note Note MySQL Installer installs and configures Connector/ODBC for you. MySQL Installer installs and configures MySQL Connector/NET for you. •To use MySQL server with .NET applications, you must have the Connector/NET driver. For more information, including installation and configuration instructions, see MySQL Connector/NET Developer Guide. MySQL distributions for Windows can be downloaded from https://dev.mysql.com/downloads/. See Section 2.1.3, “How to Get MySQL” . MySQL for Windows is available in several distribution formats, detailed here. Generally speaking, you should use MySQL Installer. It contains more features and MySQL products than the older MSI, is simpler to use than the compressed file, and you need no additional tools to get MySQL up and running. MySQL Installer automatically installs MySQL Server and additional MySQL products, creates an options file, starts the server, and enables you to create default user accounts. For more information on choosing a package, see Section 2.3.2, “Choosing an Installation Package” . •A MySQL Installer distribution includes MySQL Server and additional MySQL products including MySQL Workbench, and MySQL for Visual Studio. MySQL Installer can also be used to upgrade these products in the future (see https://dev.mysql.com/doc/mysql-compat-matrix/en/). •The standard binary distribution (packaged as a compressed file) contains 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 include an installation program. •The source distribution format contains all the code and support files for building the executables using the Visual Studio compiler system. For instructions on installing MySQL using MySQL Installer, see Section 2.3.3, “MySQL Installer for Windows” . For instructions on installing MySQL using the compressed file, see Section 2.3.4, “Installing MySQL on Microsoft Windows Using a  noinstall  ZIP Archive” . For instructions on building MySQL from source on Windows, see Section 2.9, “Installing MySQL from Source” . MySQL on Windows Considerations • Large Table Support • MySQL and Virus Checking Software If you need tables with a size larger than 4GB, install MySQL on an NTFS or newer file system. Do not forget to use  MAX_ROWS  and  AVG_ROW_LENGTH  when you create tables. See Section 13.1.20, “CREATE TABLE Statement” . 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 misidentifying the contents of the files as containing spam. This is due to the fingerprinting 116