Before I even attempt installing it though I have to check the integrity of the file. To do this I am using md5.exe a program created by developed by Ron Rivest of the MIT Laboratory for Computer Science and RSA Data Security, Inc.
Md5 can validate the integrity of a downloaded file because the algorithm creates a different signature for two different files. If even one byte is changed in a file it will give a different signature. MySQL shows the signature id under the download link like so.
Hmm, I think I'll be uploading my pictures somewhere other than blogger. Is that blurred? Anyway, the second one is is what I downloaded. Below 5.037, 36.7M, etc there is a line that says MD5: b909c16... This is the line that md5.exe must return to show you have a file of pure integrity! (If only we could do the same for politicians, ahem) So the next step after downloading MySQL is to download MD5: Command Line Digest Utility.
After it has been downloaded it has to be unzipped (I'm assuming it was downloaded as a zip and not a tar. I use zips, never used tar). I simply unzipped it into c:/md5. I then placed the downloaded mysql-yada-yada-yada.zip in the c:/md5 folder along with md5.exe. Next we go to the command line.
In Microsoft XP, where they officially killed DOS, command prompt is used. It can be opened by following: Start>All Programs>Accessories>Command Prompt
If you've never used it don't worry it is actually quite simple (I used to have to use it every day because all I had was DOS long ago :-(!)
I started in the md5 directory but I wanted to show how change directory (cd\) works.
So I entered cd\ to return to c:\
Next I entered cd\md5 to change the directory to c:\md5
Then I entered md5 (it runs md5.exe) and entered the file name I want to check after it.
It returns a line, the signature for the downloaded file. I compare that line to the line on mysql's website and (no ellipse this time) they match!
On to installation!
