This question has been answered many times before, e.g. in message 16215
which I have enclosed below. It is just Microsoft trying to make people
abandon Interbase, and doing so through "attacking" every file of type gdb.
I think there are some older messages showing how to remove gdb from the
file types protected by XP, but to find this you have to search the
archives at yahoogroups yourself.

HTH,
Set

"At 18:33 06.09.2002 +1000, Alan McDonald wrote:

>Gerhard,
>I've just seen that MS XP has included files of extension .gdb in the list
>of files which are "protected". This explains why connections can take so
>long on this OS. You need to disable SFP or rename the database file to
>another extension.
>Alan
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Gerhard Knapp
> Sent: Saturday, 31 August 2002 6:21
> To: ib-support@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: [ib-support] Slow connection - PROBLEM IS SOLVED, HURRA
>
>
> at first, thank you all for you nice help and very good tipps!
>
> now, its unbelivable....
> i have optimized p.e. windowsXP prof., and set in controlpanel, system,
> performance-options,
> (sorry i have the german version), optimal performance for processplaning
>to
> BACKGROUNDProcesses.
> You have the choice: Programms or Backgroundprocesses
>
> My thinking was: Firebird is running as a SERVICE and started with SYSTEM,
> and is a backgroundprocess!
>
> But as i changed this to: Programms, the slow connection was gone !!!!!!!
>
> NEVER SET THIS PERFORMANCE OPTION TO BACKGROUNDPROCESS!
>
> Now i have a connection-time between 1-2 seconds, and this is very okay
>...
> Before it was 7 till 16 seconds
>
> best regards
> -gerhard