Chad,

:: attempt a connection to port 3050. if it
:: connects i assume
:: that the server is running.

> But the problem is a bit bigger - This application is in C#. Indy
> exists in
> C# but because of all the meta data now I have to ship one more
> assembly and
> a fairly large one at that (2.5 MB) JUST to see if FB is running?

I know nothing .Net or C#, but in delphi i used to walk the process list
before i went for the tcp port 3050 test. would that also involve a large
overhead?