XAMPP - Replacing MariaDB with MySQL

Daniel Opitz

13 Aug 2017

There is a new blog post about moving from MariaDB to MySQL 8.

The latest version of XAMPP contains MariaDB instead of MySQL.

But MariaDB is not 100% compatible with MySQL and can be replaced with the “original” MySQL server.

Requirements

• Windows
• XAMPP for Windows
• The latest Visual C++ Redistributable Packages,
  • How to install the Visual C++ Redistributable
• Administrator privileges to restart Windows services

Backup

• Backup the old database into a SQL dump file
• Stop the MariaDB service
• Rename the folder: c:\xampp\mysql to c:\xampp\mariadb

Installation

• Download MySQL Community Server: https://dev.mysql.com/downloads/mysql/
• Click: Looking for the latest GA version?
• Select Version: 5.7.25
• Select Operating System: Microsoft Windows
• Select OS Version: Windows (x86, 32-bit)
• Scroll down to ZIP Archive and click Download.
• Create a new and empty folder: c:\xampp\mysql
• Extract mysql-5.7.25-win32.zipp to: c:\xampp\mysql
• Create a new file: c:\xampp\mysql\bin\my.ini and copy this content:

[mysqld]
# Set basedir to your installation path
basedir=c:/xampp/mysql

# Set datadir to the location of your data directory
datadir=c:/xampp/mysql/data

# Default: 128 MB
# New: 1024 MB
innodb_buffer_pool_size = 1024M

Initializing the data directory

• Copy the old data directory from c:\xampp\mariadb\data to c:\xampp\mysql\data

• Start the MySQL server. You can use the XAMPP Control Panel (MySQL > Start) to start the MySQL service.

• Repair all corrupted tables in the c:\xampp\mysql\data directory. Press ENTER if your password is empty.

cd c:\xampp\mysql\bin

mysqlcheck.exe -u root -p --auto-repair --all-databases

Update structure to latest version:

mysql_upgrade.exe -u root -p --force

Restart the MySQL service, after the mysql_upgrade.exe command, otherwise there might be errors.

Check the tables for errors:

mysqlcheck.exe -u root -p --check --all-databases

Notice: If you don’t want to copy and migrate the old data directory, you can create a fresh directory with this command:

c:\xampp\mysql\bin>mysqld.exe --initialize-insecure --basedir=c:\xampp\mysql --datadir=c:\xampp\mysql\data

Finished

Known issues

Question 1

• I can’t start or stop MySQL using the XAMPP control panel button
• The XAMPP control panel is crashing while shutting down

Answers

• Make sure you have installed the 32-bit version of MySQL. The MySQL 64-bit version is not compatible with the XAMPP Control Panel (32-bit).
• This setup is not tested with MySQL 8.x.
• MySQL 8.x is only available as 64-bit version
• Try to fix the directory permissions with this batch script

Question 2

• How to fix: The code execution cannot proceed because msvcr120.dll was not found. Reinstalling the program may fix this problem. ?

Answer

• The file MSVCR120.dll should be part of the Microsoft Visual C++ 2013 Redistributable Package