Say I have installed MySQL workbench on windows 7 without a server, and I\'m connecting to a remote server.
How can I set client configuration (like the [client] section in
You asked this a long time ago, and so maybe this is no longer relevant to you, but I will include a way of doing this here to benefit others.
In Workbench open your connection properties. On the Connection Tab, select the Advanced Tab. In there add the following two options to the Others section (obviously change the readDefaultFile location to the location of your my.ini).
readDefaultFile=C:\Program Files\MySQL\MySQL Server 5.7\my.ini readDefaultGroup=client
Now opening connections should read the client section from that my.ini as required.