> I believe
> that this is actually the software and not Firebird, so I can see why he
> is apprehensive about installing Firebird on his main data server. I
> will just need to convince him otherwise.

Placing the database on an mapped drive is not the natural consequence
of not installing firebird on the server. The natural consequence of
installing the server on another machine is to store the database on
an local harddisk of this machine.

> Out of interest, as its not happened to me yet, if firebird does
> actually freeze or hang, will a simple stop and restart of the service
> do in 99% of the cases?

Usually it is the Job of the operating system to cleanly remove
unfunctional processes. On Windows most situations requiering a reboot
are caused by GUI-crashes - if you cannot invoke taskmanager you
cannot kill the applikation. On linux you have a second chance by
telnetting from another machine.

Elmar