informing mysqld about my.ini or my.cnf location

"Ilavajuthy Palanisamy" <[email protected]> Sun, 8 Jan 2006 13:11:37 -0800

Newsgroups	gmane.comp.db.mysql.windows
Message-ID	<[email protected]>

Hi,
 
I'm running MySql 4.1.x version on both windows and linux.
As of now i have placed my.ini in C:\WINDOWS (WINDIR) and my.cnf in /etc.
Need to know by placing my.ini or my.cnf in my custom directory (e.g. $MYSQL_HOME), how do I inform mysqld to pickup my.ini or my.cnf from my custom directory.
 
Thanks,
Ila.