What you want to do it seems is change the hostname for access of some users. Although, if it is local access, they should have access to localhost and it doesn't matter which hostname the machine has. Also, initially, you have to set the root password. Almost everyone uses PHPMyAdmin to administer MySQL in this area (apart from the root password). Either by editing the mysql.* databases directly (which I wouldn't recommend if you have no experience) or in the user administration. After that you have to flush the credentials or simply restart MySQL. As John and others said, the hostname of the machine doesn't matter. It's not necessary to reinstall MySQL as this won't "fix" it, anyway. Kai