hello Alan,

> it's just the missing ms libs (msvc*71,dll)

nope, I have both in my system32 dir and they have the same version of that
supplied with FB 2.0 RC3.

A strange thing that I forgot to mention is that clicking on "Other control
panel options" I have the following behaviour:

Notebook: Firebird applet and an InstallShield applet are shown
Desktop : Only the InstallShield applet is shown

so I think that it should be something else...

Regards
Salvatore