Somehow my own posting didn't find its way into my newsreader, but at least
I can see the answers to it.

In IBO I left both Path and Server completely empty, upon startup the app.
checks if there is an *.ini file and if so, it reads path and server from it
to connect to the database. If the Ini is not found, the user gets prompted
to specify the path to the DB file. If the path specified is UNC specific
like \\tower\d\directory\DBFile.gdb the app. converts it into
tower:d:\directory\DBFile.gdb and assigns this string to Path of the
TIB_Connection.
All this logic is taken from an existing application using IBX and this
application doesn't have a problem to find the DB server on the remote
machine. Just to make sure, I have verified that the IB port 3050 is
specified in services, that name-to-ip is resolved in the host file and that
I can ping the remote machine using its name rather than IP, yes to all of
it.
Just now after reading Lesters' posting I tried to assign Path and Server
separately, this seems to have solved the problem. My question now: Is path
needed or is it not?

Florian