> This was OK until Windows XP, but in Windows 7, it doesn't
> work any more, even if I run "setup.exe" "As Administrator".

I don't know if this has anything to do with your problem or
not... but under Windows 7 the "Run as Administrator" (and
Windows Explorer itself) is rather less predictable.

For example: if you are running in a session as a user without
administrative rights and you try to use "Run as Administrator"
to start Windows Explorer you do NOT get an explorer.exe
process running as the admin user (despite being prompted for
the admin user name and password).

Even if you "Run as Administrator" a command prompt (and there
you can see your cmd.exe is running as the admin user) and then
run explorer from that command prompt you end up with an
explorer.exe process running as your non-admin login. (Not
sure what convolutions they pull to achieve this.)

The moral of this story is that you may have to ensure you are
logged on and running a full windows sessions as your admin
user to get some things, particularly more complicated
installs, to work.


Note too that even when you are running as an administrative
user things are less predictable... that session still does not
have all the same properties of the old "administrator" login.
You will already know that you you still get the UAC prompts
for certain system actions (copying files to system32 etc), but
what is less clear are subtle things like file locations. One
thing that has caught me a few times:

The admin user mapped H: to \\server\userhome
done using Windows Explorer.

From Windows Explorer this is visible, but use "Run as
Administrator" to start a command prompt and the H: drive
does not seem to exist - despite the fact that you are
already logged on as that user.

Several installation programs have stumbled in this
because they seem to see that the H: drive exists but
whatever they do to scan it under Run as Administrator
fails because the raised privilege cant see the drive.
Such problems can be worked around using the relevant
NET USE command issued from the Run As Administrative
command prompt.


As for your ongoing registry issues... is this 32bit Firebird
over 64bit Windows 7?

There are odd-things going on there too, with virtual registry
locations etc. I have not worked out all the details yet, but
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE entries can certainly be confusing.

Not sure I have this exactly right but... if you use a 64bit
process to install HKLM entries (eg: merging a hand-written
file that assumes a "normal" 32bit system) they may not be
visible to your 32bit server process - because 32bit processes
that look for HKLM\Software are redirected to:
HKLM\Software\Wow6432Node\

ie. If running 32bit FB under 64bit Windows 7, and relying
on HKLM\Software registry entries for config, then make sure
those entries exist under: HKLM\Software\Wow6432Node\

[Someone please correct me if I have this wrong, I am going
from recent experience not yet confirmed by other research.]



I hope something here helps. While I like Windows 7 in many
things some parts are proving to be right PITA.

[I imagine that some of the above applies to Windows Vista
too, but like many others I skipped that version of Windows.]

--
Geoff Worboys
Telesis Computing