I am running mysql on win98 for testing.

I have installed mysql and "free mascon". Then I remove all users from the database except root@localhost for preliminary security and assign root a password.

At first command line clients, winmysqladmin and mascon all work great. Then after some time, winmysqladmin stops displaying the "server status" info correctly-all the text areas are empty and the button "Start Extended Server Status" is grayed out. For some time after this "free mascon" can still connect. Then suddenly, the command line clients can't connect and give me a "Connection refused for user root@localhost using password YES".

I know I have typed in the correct password and it used to work before so what is wrong? I made no modifications to the users list after the initial setup of the single root user.