Robert,

> So how is it that connections are allowed which screw up IB??

they don't screw up anything, unless different connection strings are
uset to refer to the same file, which is a thing Windows allows by
having the drive '\' not mandatory (neither is the drive letter, for
that matter) in a file name specification.

I don't know if the problems arise even under unix (if symlinks are
involved, perhaps).

I don't know quite what an acceptable solution to this would be, but I'm
sure Firebird will feature a solution sooner or later. WRT InterBase,
who knows?

Ciao
--
____
_/\/ando