Installing the latest Windows MSI and connecting to a MySQL 8 server fails because the caching_sha2_password.dll plugin is not found. The error reports:

Plugin caching_sha2_password could not be loaded.
The specified module could not be found. Library path is
'C:/Program Files/mariadb-connector-c/lib/mariadb/plugin/caching_sha2_password.dll'

However, the standard installation path is:
C:\Program Files\MariaDB\MariaDB Connector C 64-bit

And caching_sha2_password.dll is installed there under lib\plugin

The connection succeeds if I move the installed plugin directory to the incorrect path: C:\Program Files\mariadb-connector-c\lib\mariadb

To summarise, on a standard installation, the plugins are searched in the wrong place.

It would also be good if the plugin directory was first checked relative to the loaded libmariadb.dll - i.e. so the plugins could be put in a custom location.

Thank you for your good work.