I researched it a little bit further. So, the below bug can be worked around with mysqld -install Assuming you have my.ini in the installation directory, you'll get service named MySQL, which will be using my.ini config file n the installation root. With this configuration, WB does not crash, and you can point it to my.ini. And my.ini settings will *not* be shown in the WB configuration settings, as you say. For MariaDB 5.2 that is. For MariaDB 5.1 however, it works. My theory is that Workbench checks version prior presenting config file options. 5.2 is not a known version, hence config editor behavior is erratic. I cannot think of other explanation for this behavior , as my.ini files are identical in my tests, the only thing which is different here is the version string. Vladislav. PS. I don't think Oracle Workbench folks would see this behavior as a bug btw, as they are not bound to support Maria. From: maria-discuss-bounces+wlad=montyprogram.com@lists.launchpad.net [mailto:maria-discuss-bounces+wlad=montyprogram.com@lists.launchpad.net] On Behalf Of Vladislav Vaintroub Sent: Freitag, 18. Februar 2011 14:18 To: 'Jake Drew'; maria-discuss@lists.launchpad.net Subject: Re: [Maria-discuss] Installing MariaDB using MySQL Workbench on Windows Jake, I tried to do instance setup on my machine using your description. Workbench brings a nicely designed popup "has encountered a bug, please report", during "Management and OS" step. So I did, reported it here http://bugs.mysql.com/bug.php?id=60167 From: maria-discuss-bounces+wlad=montyprogram.com@lists.launchpad.net [mailto:maria-discuss-bounces+wlad=montyprogram.com@lists.launchpad.net] On Behalf Of Jake Drew Sent: Donnerstag, 17. Februar 2011 22:39 To: maria-discuss@lists.launchpad.net Subject: [Maria-discuss] Installing MariaDB using MySQL Workbench on Windows