At 03:47 PM 12/05/2005 -0600, you wrote:

>We are installing firebird with our application onto Windows XP
>machines. We have some customers that are getting into a wierd state.
>
>When our install program goes to start the firebird service we are
>geting this error:
>
>"Error 3: The system could not find the path specified"
>
>Does anybody know what the path would be or any strategies for finding
>out which path is in question.
>
>We think that it has something to do with uninstalling firebird and
>reinstalling with an old interbase instance still hanging around.
>
>We have tried going through the registry and file system and deleting
>all instances of both firebird and interbase, but this did not help.
>When we try running our instalation process again it fails with the
>above error when we try to start the firebird service.

Try running the command shell program instreg.exe from the Firebird bin
directory. This installs the correct location of the Firebird root
directory into the Registry. The doc for it is in the \doc directory.

That's a necessity with Fb 1.0 and a last resort with Fb 1.5. With Fb 1.5,
if you install everything in its proper relative location, the registry
entry isn't used.

It would be a worthwhile reality check to see what Windows has in its
definition of the service. I don't have WinXP, but in W2K you can get to
this through Administration Tools>Services, right click on the entry there
for Firebird Server and look at the Path to Executable in the property sheet.

Another "outlier" might be a rogue artifact from an old IB installation, a
shortcut to ibserver.exe in the Startup folder of one or another user's
Start Menu>Programs setup.

./hb