This section provides step-by-step instructions on how to install MySQL Server on Windows. To begin, go to https://dev.mysql.com/downloads/windows/installer/:

1. Click Download on the installer of your choice. You can choose either the web community or community version, as shown in the following screenshot. The final setup procedures will be the same. The web community download will download all the files from online while the installer runs. The community download includes all the files needed to install MySQL, including MySQL Workbench. It's just a decision as to whether you want to be online during installation (web community install) or offline during installation (community install). I prefer to download the larger community file to ensure that if my internet connection fails midway through, I don't have to worry about the installation failing, but it's up to you:

2. If you aren't interested in logging in or signing up, choose No thanks, just start my download:

3. Install the file you just downloaded by clicking on it from your browser downloads or by double-clicking on the file in Windows Explorer.

4. You may or may not have products to upgrade. If you aren't prompted to upgrade, you may be able to skip to the section where you can configure MySQL, as shown in the following screenshot:

5. Click Next.
6. Leave everything checked and click Next. Note that your list of products to upgrade may look different than the ones shown in the following screenshot:

7. Review the list to make sure everything was successful and click Next.
8. Click Finish. This will bring you to the MySQL Installer page. It will list the products you have installed and allows you to Add, Modify, Upgrade, or Remove products. You will see the products that you were just required to upgrade listed here: 

9. Click Add.
10. On the License Agreement page, accept the license terms and click Next:

11. This will bring you to a page called Select Products and Features. If you already have a MySQL database server to connect to, you can just install MySQL Workbench. If you don't have a MySQL database server, MySQL Server install will allow you to connect to a database server to create and work with a MySQL database. This will be very beneficial to you if you plan to restore the database later in this chapter as this will help you walk through the exercises throughout this book. 

The following screenshot shows the options for installing both MySQL Server and MySQL Workbench, so this way, you can have a local instance of MySQL to work on for the examples throughout this book:

12. Click Next.
13. When the installer has completed successfully, click Next:

This will bring you to the configuration section of the installer, which we will cover in the next section.