MySQL Bugs: #36493: Windows uninstaller deletes my.ini

Bug #36493	Windows uninstaller deletes my.ini
Submitted:	4 May 2008 14:47	Modified:	17 Aug 2009 16:38
Reporter:	Peter Laursen (Basic Quality Contributor)	Email Updates:
Status:	Closed	Impact on me:	None
Category:	MySQL Server: Installing	Severity:	S2 (Serious)
Version:	6.0.4	OS:	Windows
Assigned to:	Iggy Galarza	CPU Architecture:	Any
Tags:	qc

Description:
While working with this
http://bugs.mysql.com/36491

... I found out that the unistaller deletes the my.ini file (in the standard posistion \prrgram files\mysql\mysql server 6.0)

The my.ini may represent considerable work and accumulated 'knowledge' by user.  It is a serious flaw to delete it, I believe!

How to repeat:
install - uninstall

Suggested fix:
It seems that the uninstaller simple clears the folder except for the /data subfolder (if there).  It should only delete spcific files .. and not my.ini!

Thank you for a bug report. Only my*.ini.bak files remains, if any, but my.ini is indeed deleted. It should NOT be deleted, I think, at least if its modification date/time is different from installation date/time.

I had no my.ini.bak either!

I think that .bak file was created by 'MySQL administrator' at an earlier point of time where you used MA for altering the configuration!

and btw:

you had the feedback here you need!
http://bugs.mysql.com/bug.php?id=36491

It is a flaw with this bugs system that if *the original reporter* does not change status from *need feedback*, it seems that developers are not notified!

Proposed changes

Attachment: bug36493.patch (application/octet-stream, text), 1.47 KiB.

MySQLInstanceConfig.exe unconditionally removes the instance's configuration file on removal.  The proposed changes simply remove this step from the uninstall process.

Ok to push with a couple of suggestions (that are probably beyond the scope of the bug)

Verified that my.ini file remains after using the REMOVE option of the .msi installer.

Also verified that the saved my.ini file is saved as my<date+time>.ini.bak when the instance config is used to create a new my.ini file.  

We might want to provide the user a message to let them know that we are renaming their existing my.ini file to prevent any "Ohmygosh, I just lost my file!" moments.

Another suggestion would be to have the instance config program detect that my.ini already exists and allow the user to use that and skip certain aspects of the configuration process.  However, this seems like it would be much more than a trivial fix.

One last suggestion:

We might want to provide the user with options for what exactly they want to delete when using the REMOVE option of the .msi.

They could select exactly what they would like to get rid of and the .msi could respond accordingly:
Full Remove - remove everything including the data directory
Save data / Save my.ini / etc.

Just a thought concerning usability / friendliness.

A note has been added to the respective changelogs: 

Important Change: Uninstalling MySQL using the MySQL installer on Windows would delete the my.ini file. The file is no longer deleted. In addition, when a new installation is conducted, any existing cofiguration file will be renamed to myDATETIME.ini.bak during configuration.