Hi,

we have an application using firebird. In the past we used V1.03 but now we
want to switch to V1.5 final. We only support Windows (clients and server).

The problem is, that we have an (increasing) amount of errors/problems
regarding to other applications that are also using the firebird/interbase
server. Some of them use different versions of the server, some are running
with a local server installation, some use modified sysdba-passwords,.... In
addition we do not install our app - our customers do that (and they are far
away from being "computer-freaks"). Last but not least our software can be
used single- or multiuser - with or without a dedicated server.

While testing multiple situations I got the idea that I could use the
embedded Server to solve my problems.

Idea:
- Our setup always installs a complete embedded server (renamed to
gds32.dll, intl-dir, firebird.msg,...) in the application's directory.
- If the user decides to have multiuser-access the FB-Superserver will be
installed (additionally). In this case our emedded-server-dll acts as a
simple, "normal" system32\gds32.dll. The database will be accessed via
TCP/IP.
- If the user decides to have single-user-access only, we don't need to
install the Superserver - we'll use the embedded server. The databases will
be accessed via the local-protocoll.

Advantages (in theory):
- No other Firebird/Interbase installation (at least at the client
computer) can "disturb" our app.
- No chance of mismatch between gds32.dll and the messages-file.
- We don't need to run the firebird "clientsetup" on every client.
- ...


I did some tests with different combinations and it seems to work. But I'm
afraid that this was pure chance.

Does anybody know if this should work under all possible conditions or does
anybody know that it could/should fail? What about Win98 (a lot of our
customers still use it)?


Thanks in advance for your help
Thomas

P.S. Sorry for the long text, but it's not easy to tell you what I mean and
to write it in English makes it even harder.