Welcome Grant,

>
> 1) - What FireBird files must I copy onto the laptop and where do I

put

> them.

You only need the client library. Depending on what components your
application was built with, this will either be called fbclient.dll
or gds32.dll. You can put both in for the moment and figure out which
one is used later.

You put the dll in the same path as your application, or in a shared
path such as windows\system32\, but IMO the same path as your
application is a better road to go down.

>
> 2) - What other things must I do to enable the application on my

laptop

> to "talk" to the FireBird database on my desk top machine.
>

Nothing, sort of.

They must be able to see each other via TCP/IP (ok there are other
options but TCP/IP is the best way). The server must have port 3050
open.

On the server, add an alias if you haven't already

in c:\program files\firebird\firebird_1_5\aliases.conf

add the line (well replace it with the appropriate path and name).

MyDB = c:\data\MyDB.fdb

Now I will assume your servers computername is "MyServer".

Your client application can connect to

"MyServer:MyDB"

> 3) - How can I check that the correct port on my desk top is open

and if

> not how do I make it open.

The following command should leave a blank dos box if port firebird
is listening to its default port (3050)

telnet MyServer 3050

If it says something like connection refused, you probably have a
firewall in the way. Create an exception for Firebird or 3050.


Hope that helps

Adam