MySQL: my.ini not read

MySQL: my.ini not read

I have MySQL 5.6 installed on Windows 7 64 Bit and I can't seem to get it
to read my my.ini file. I've put the file into the base installation
directory, the Windows directory and C:\, but it doesn't look like it's
being read, even though all paths are listed here:
http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.1/en/option-files.html
My my.ini file doesn't do much, I just took the my-default.ini as a base
and added [mysqld] max_allowed_packet=100000000 because that default limit
of 4MB is bad for BLOBs.
When I start mysql.exe and check the variable I find that it's still at
4MB, even after restarting the server (both via the services menu in the
control panel and via mysqld -shutdown + mysqld -startup) and restarting
Windows.
I have Windows 7, 64 bit. Can anyone help me, please?
Thanks in advance!
Alex