title: ruby on rails + xampp + mysql (windows 7)
body: <p>I am trying to use the mysql package included in xampp with ruby on rails on windows 7, but cannot seem to get them to work together.</p>
  
  <p>I have rails 3.0.0 and xampp 1.7.3</p>
  
  <p>rails works with sqlite within xampp just fine, but when attempting to use mysql via "rails new project -d mysql; cd project; bundle install"</p>
  
  <p>I get the following:</p>
  
  <pre>
  Installing mysql2 (0.2.4) with native extensions C:/xampp/Ruby192/lib/ruby/1.9.1
  /rubygems/installer.rb:483:in `rescue in block in build_extensions': ERROR: Fail
  ed to build gem native extension. (Gem::Installer::ExtensionBuildError)
  
  C:/xampp/Ruby192/bin/ruby.exe extconf.rb
  checking for rb_thread_blocking_region()... *** extconf.rb failed ***
  Could not create Makefile due to some reason, probably lack of
  necessary libraries and/or headers.  Check the mkmf.log file for more
  details.  You may need configuration options.
  </pre>
  
  <p>Am I missing anything?  All the posts about this issue tell me to use gem install mysql -- --with-mysql-config=PATH, but this does not seem to work with Windows, as I get the same error regardless.</p>
  
  <p>And if it's just not possible, are there any drawbacks to using sqlite now, then trying to migrate the databse over to mysql (or another more robust database) later?</p>