For MySQL 5.6 on Windows, the default installation directory is C:\Program Files\MySQL\MySQL Server 5.6. Some Windows users prefer to install in C:\mysql, the directory that formerly was used as the default. However, the layout of the subdirectories remains the same.

All of the files are located within this parent directory, using the structure shown in the following table.

If you install MySQL using the Windows MSI package, this package creates and sets up the data directory that the installed server will use, but also creates a pristine “template” data directory named data under the installation directory. After an installation has been performed using this package, the template data directory can be copied to set up additional MySQL instances. See Section 5.3, “Running Multiple MySQL Instances on One Machine”.