> 1) Can both Servers be on the same machine? How do I have to do this? I
> quickly installed FB1.5 and then, I was no more able to connect to IB 6
> with IBConsole.

You have to tell Firebird to listen to a different port than the usual
3050, this can be done in the configuration file firebird.conf. Find and
change the parameter RemoteServicePort, set it to for example 3060 and
delete the # at the beginning of the line.
Stop and restart the server after the change.
In addition to that, when the clients connect to the server, they also
have to connect to port 3060 when the want to connet to FB instead of IB.
In order to really use both servers also from the clients, they have to
have the appropriate client library installed. Although you might be
able to connect to a firebid server using a client library which belongs
to an older interbase installation, it can give you weird errors.
So your clients have to have fbclient.dll installed for the connection
to Firebird and gds32.dll for the connection to Interbase.
Now, if you have to use different client libraries to connect to
different servers, the application have to be able to switch between
libraries.
So, it's all not really painless if you insist on keeping your old
Interbase server running an serving. Why don't you get rid of it
altogether once you have tested Firebird and found it working with your
application?

> 2) How do I have to migrate the database? I just opened a IB GDB with a
> running FB Server and it seems to work. Do I realy have to Backup and
> Restore? Or only if I need some specific features?

If you want to play it save, do a backup/restore

> 3) Is there a tool or a script that can do this for me? I have approx.
> 200 Laptops to change
> 4) What's the best freeware tool to handle the DB (like IBConsole). Or
> does

There is a commercial tool called IBExpert (www.ibexpert.de), they also
offer a free personal version with some limitations.


Florian