At 07:02 PM 31/03/2005 +0000, you wrote:

>(SAM HERE AGAIN. ORIGINATOR)
>SPECIFIC QUESTIONS for anyone:
>1. Does the FB1.5.2 install EXE (from the Firebird site) install
>Firebird, ready to use on a network, or must I "configure" it so it
>will?

With the default server install It's ready to go. However, make sure that
the server has port 3050 open. The installer won't touch your firewall
settings. It also doesn't install network services for you.

>I'm concerned about the "Default Instance" Status in Services.

It's not a status, it's part of the human-readable name of the service,
i.e. "Firebird Server - Default Instance". The Net name of the service is
FirebirdServerDefaultInstance. (There is also
FirebirdGuardianDefaultInstance, if you are running the Guardian).

>2. In a peer-to-peer network, is it necessary for someone to be
>logged onto the server, in order for Firebird to be able to respond to
>client requests?

No, only the client that is submitting the requests. The server doesn't
even need to be logged in (and shouldn't be, if the server is unattended).

Firebird doesn't know "peer-to-peer network". It doesn't use or allow file
sharing. On Windows, remote clients can connect via TCP/IP or Named Pipes
(NetBEUI transport). Neither of these is a peer-to-peer protocol.

>TO REVIEW MY ENVIRONMENT AND PROBLEM:(still no fix)
>1. The client is using the minimal client install option of the FB
>EXE install.

The name of the Fb 1.5 client library is fbclient.dll. By default, it will
be located in the directory you chose as your Firebird root during the
client-only install. Almost all existing application programs expect a
client named gds32.dll and for it to be located either in the application
directory or in the Windows System32 directory. There are options during
the client install to enable the client to be installed this way.

>2. The client can ping the "server" (peer-to-peer) at all times.

How do peer-to-peer clients "ping the server"? A peer-to-peer "client" can
either see filesystems and devices on peer machines or not. Whether it can
or cannot might help if you are doubtful about the integrity of the network
wiring but it doesn't tell you anything about what might or might not be
happening across the TCP/IP or Named Pipes transports.

The kind of "ping" that is useful for testing a client-server connection is
TCP/IP ping, which you run from the command line of the client, viz.

ping MyServer

Clients of course need to have TCP/IP installed.

>3. Client requests to FB to connect to the database are only
>successful if I run a little Delphi form-based, "connect" app on the
>server first and leave it in memory.

This doesn't make any sense. It does, I suppose, indicate that (for some
reason) your server doesn't start broadcasting its presence until "woken
up" locally. Weird. You need to find out what is happening on port 3050
*before* that.

>4. My database is located in a dir just inside "Program Files" on the
>server.

That shouldn't be a problem.

One other thing that hasn't come up in this round (since you referred to
your database file as "any.fdb") is the SystemRestore problem on XP servers
with database files named with the ".gdb" extension. Is this an issue with
the actual database file name?

./hb