What the...
I also posted this question on the mySQL forums. After getting brushed off with a "common solution" that unsurprisingly did not work (I didn't have a MySQL service at the time... how was I supposed to remove it with a third-party program if it didn't exist?). Browsing back, one guy got a solution by uninatalling and installing it to a 8.3-compliant directory. This I tried, but it didn't work.
This morning after reading your post, I attempted to install (I had to uninstall again) MySQL. It locked up, however, trying to connect to MySQL.com. I couldn't get it to shut down, so I hit Reset. After it rebooted, I ran setup again, choosing "repair" since it was already somewhat installed. After that, I ran the config wizard and to my surprise, it went without a hitch. I'm in the command-line client now, but I'm still baffled how that managed to work.
