At 06:29 PM 11/03/2006, you wrote:

>I'm astonished at both your encylopedic knowledge and your 24/7
>responses to this group. Amazing. Insomniac?

With age comes encyclopaedic knowledge. :-) I am (I think) the
youngest person I know who doesn't own a walking frame.

>I've trawled through past messages and based on your experience, would
>you recommend that I stick with Delphi 4 (plus updates) which did
>include Tdataset (don't know about the web stuff)? I know it's
>regarded as a dog, but I'd really like to be able to avoid spending
>US$1,000 right now...?
>
>Also, I tried to install IB into Delphi 4 and got the "only 3 tabs
>problem" as previously discussed here:
>http://groups.yahoo.com/group/IBObjects/message/38053

That's not unusual for Delphi 4 though.

>I tried following your instructions below, but still no luck.
>
>You wrote:
>
>"For Delphi 4,
>
>1) Remove the packages that the Components|Install components applet
>is displaying; then close Delphi.
>
>2) Use Search to find all of the "..._D4" BPLs and copy them into the
>system directory, e.g. into windows\system32 on XP.
>
>(Presumably this means all "..._D4.bpl" in the IBO directory &
>subdirectories?)

Well, they shouldn't be in the "IBO directory & subdirectories"
unless you actually set your environment paths to put them there. In
fact the main cause that I know of why D4 and D3 have problems
finding BPLs is that there's a design-time bug in the code that finds
directory paths. If you don't have the 2 Delphi 4 upgrade packs (or,
in some editions, even if you do) the path "c:\windows\system32" (or
c:\winnt\system32") often turns out to be the only place the buggy
IDE can find BPLs. And, for the DCPs, a shallow path for the IBO
root will help the D4 IDE to find them in the root directory or (my
preference) in $iboroot\dcp

>3) You might have to do the same with the DCP files, except move them
>into your IBO root directory instead of the system directory
>
>(Presumably all *.dcp files in the IBO subdirectories &
>windows\system32 directory? )

Look, you will have - somewhere! - a DCP and a BPL file for each
source package that was able to be installed. Literally open the
.bpg and count the packages. For D4 you should have the two
----'X'---- packages (the design-time and the run-time) but, unless
you have the Enterprise edition (I think they called it the
"Client/Server edition" n those days), you won't have the web
support, so you won't have compiled any of ----'W'---- packages.

>4) Then restart Delphi and use the "..." dialog to locate and install
>the IBO packages.
>
>("..." dialog???)

Components/Install Components.

>5) D4 is such a temperamental beast that you should next try to do a
>"Save All" if it is available, then close and restart Delphi.
>
>6) If it didn't "take" then double-check your system paths and
>repeat 4) and 5)."

It *will* eventually install in D4. It just takes a peculiar amount
of tenacity. :-)

Helen