> Don't give up: post another message with ICU as the first word in
> the subject. With luck, Adriano dos S.F., who implemented it, may
> give you some tip for starting up without ICU support. I might even
> find the answer myself, as I'm currently scouring through archives
> myself, trying to find answers to such things as embroidery for the
> TFB Firebird 2.0 supplement.
>
> ./heLen
>

Thanks for the investigation!

I found this site:
http://www.firebirdsql.org/manual/ufb-cs-embedded.html

which basically says I must have them installed:

----
The following files however must be left in your application's directory:

* Any and all copies/renames of fbembed.dll
* firebird.conf (only needed if you want to change the
Firebird root)
* ib_util.dll
* for Firebird 2 and up: the icu*.dll libraries
----

So I guess I also need ib_util.dll as well.

My app is ca. 1.4 MB and I really don't want to add another meg to the
download... not a big deal, Firebird 1.5 is serving its purpose nicely
already although there are of course a lot of things of interest in
v.2.0 :)

Thanks!
Atli