I previously posted a problem in that for some reason Firebird 1.5
didn't recognise CURRENT_USER.

Thanks to guidance from Helen and searching other forums It's been
resolved. At the risk of publicly displaying my ignorance, I post the
feedback here in case others have the same problem.

In having my laptop configured to access work systems and to run work
applications, Interbase had indeed been installed. Although Firebird
was running and appeared normal, it was Interbase that was being
picked up by my development environment. Removing Interbase, as Helen
suggested, cured the problem but gave me another.

I use Borland C++builder6. Without Interbase installed I could not
connect to my Firebird database from my IDE, getting "database
unavailable". Firebird was installed as a service. It appears if I
need to use Firebird from my IDE it has to be installed as an app. It
can be deployed as a service though as the IDE won't be used.

I hope this helps other novices such as me who might fall into similar
traps.

George