Normally, you will use MySQL Administrator to connect to a running MySQL server. This is done by starting the program and specifying in the Connection dialog which server to connect to.
Alternatively, you can run MySQL Administrator in configure-service mode. This is useful in the following cases:
When you want to start a MySQL server from within MySQL Administrator. Obviously, you cannot connect to a server that is not running, so you will have to use the configure-service mode to start that server. Note that, at the moment, you can only start servers on the same machine where MySQL Administrator is running (that is on the local host).
When you have multiple servers running on your machine. When running in normal mode on Windows, MySQL Administrator only allows you to configure the Windows service that is listed first in the Windows services management. This means that if you have more than one Windows service, you can only configure the first one of those, no matter which server you connect to. If you want to configure a service other than the first service, you will have to run MySQL Administrator in configure-service mode.
To start MySQL Administrator in configure-service mode, hold down the CTRL key in the Connection dialog. The button will toggle to when that key is pressed.
Clicking on the button will skip the normal mode, thus starting MySQL Administrator in configure-service mode.
Under Installed Services in the
sidebar, you
can select the service that you wish to configure, or the server
that you want to stop or start. In configure-service mode, not all
sidebar options are available:
The Service Control section allows you to start and stop a MySQL server, and to configure the Windows service managing that server.
The Startup Variables section allows you to set variables for server startup.
Both of those sections are described in what follows.
