As a developer there are times you may need to use MySQL 5.7 but have it backwards compatible with MySQL 5.6, so that existing applications work as before. This is a collection from multiple sources, that seems to get everything to work fine

The settings below when added to my.ini or my.cnf have this effect

[mysqld] # Only allow connections from localhost # bind-address = 127.0.0.1 innodb_buffer_pool_size=6G max_allowed_packet=128M innodb_file_per_table = OFF table_definition_cache = 400 table_open_cache = 400 performance_schema=ON show_compatibility_56=1 sql_mode = IGNORE_SPACE,STRICT_TRANS_TABLES,ERROR_FOR_DIVISION_BY_ZERO,NO_AUTO_CREATE_USER,NO_ENGINE_SUBSTITUTION ssl=0

# general log general-log=1 log-raw=1 general-log-file=/var/log/mysql/general.log