Databases - Installing Firebird 1.5.1

Due to dll conflicts, Interbase and Firebird are no longer compatible. However, the instructions I've written for the Interbase DataPump rely on InterBase Windows ISQL. As a result, the general installation procedure is to

Remove (uninstall) Interbase
Install Firebird
Install the Interbase tools

Installation Notes | Uninstalling Interbase 5 | Uninstalling Interbase 6
Reinstalling Interbase Tools | Registry Modifications

Installation Notes

After installing Delphi 5 and Interbase 5, I downloaded and excuted Official Windows Setup and Installer For Classic and SuperServer V1.5.1 (07-16-04). As a result, I got the following warning.

Pre-installation analysis indicates that 1 existing Firebird or Interbase version has been found. InterBase Minimal client install.
(Install appears broken due to version string mismatch.)

If you continue with this installation Firebird will be installed but not configured. You will have to complete installation manually.

Do you want to CANCEL this installation?

I selected No to continue the installation.

The readme file says

Before installation
-------------------

It is recommended that you UNINSTALL all previous 
versions of Firebird 1.0, Firebird 1.5 or InterBase 
before installing this package.

Funny, I did not see that when I read the installation instructions on SourceForge. More to the point, if Interbase is uninstalled, then so are the GUI tools used to work with Firebird.

At this point, I

Stopped the Firebird install
Uninstalled Interbase via Control Panel / Add or Remove Programs (Uninstall was not available via the Start menu)
Restarted the Firebird install

I changed a few settings

Unchecked Use the Guardian (using service instead)
Unchecked ... legacy app. support ... needed to use the old Interbase tools (of course, the bit about "Interbase tools" wasn't displayed until after the installation was complete)

Well, that was a mistake ... the Interbase components (on the Delphi toolbar) require gds32.dll. I fixed this (re-added the dll) by using

C:\Program Files\Firebird\Firebird_1_5\bin>instclient.exe i gds32
GDS32.DLL has been installed to the System directory.

This may also be required on client machines that run Delphi applications.

Uninstalling Interbase 5

As stated above, Firebird 1.5.x won't install properly unless Interbase is first uninstalled.

However, notice that the uninstall is not complete ... the following 3 files were left (there may be more that I did not find)

C:\Program Files\InterBase Corp\InterBase\ib_license.dat
C:\Program Files\InterBase Corp\InterBase\ibinstall.dll
C:\Program Files\InterBase Corp\InterBase\ibuninst.exe

Uninstalling Interbase - Interbase 6 and Firebird 1.0

On a configured and working Windows 2000 system, I uninstalled Firebird 1.0 via the Start menu. The final dialog box stated that some elements were not removed ... but they could be removed manually. Unfortunately, those elements were not listed.

Interbase 6 was uninstalled via the Control Panel - a dialog box stated that these files would not be uninstalled

isc4.gdb
isc4.gbk
interbase.log
ibuninst.exe
ibinstall.dll
ib_license.dat

As the uninstall ran, the following errors were displayed (one dialog box for each missing file)

File delete operation error occured
Error occured while deleting file
   c:\Program Files\Firebird\bin\gpre.exe
   c:\Program Files\Firebird\bin\isql.exe
   c:\Program Files\Firebird\bin\gsec.exe
   c:\Program Files\Firebird\bin\gfix.exe
   c:\Program Files\Firebird\bin\gbak.exe
   c:\Program Files\Firebird\bin\instreg.exe

It is interesting that the Interbase uninstall was looking for files in the Firebird directory. In addition, the C:\Program Files\InterBase Corp directory was no longer on the system.

Reinstalling Interbase Tools

When Interbase was uninstalled, all the associated tools were also uninstalled. This section restores Windows ISQL - needed to create tables via scripts.

Place the Delphi 5 CD in the drive
On the Install application, click the Local Interbase button
Step thru the various pages until you get to Interbase component selection
Unselect the client, server, and ODBC drivers
Continue with the installation
- You will get a warning that several required components are missing, ignore this because Firebird is providing those components (dll's)
- Also ignore this error
InterBase Windows ISQL is now available

BTW, the hard drive has 60.6 GB free, but the installer says that only 713 MB are available - 20 MB required.

Delphi 6 Procedure

It wouldn't be fun if every version of something wasn't different.

With Interbase 6, Windows ISQL is installed as part of IBConsole - a much more useful and easy to use application.

Place the Delphi 6 CD in the drive
On the Install application, click the Interbase 6.0 Desktop button
Step thru the various pages until you get to Interbase component selection
Unselect the Client, Server, Replication Manager, Replication Server, and Command-line tools
Continue with the installation
- You will get a warning that several required components are missing, ignore this because Firebird is providing those components (dll's)
InterBase IBConsole is now available

Registry Modifications

Since the supplied Interbase ISQL tools will NOT work with Firebird Dialect 3, I had to use the command line isql.exe application supplied with Firebird. (I tested this with both Interbase versions 5 and 6.) Though they have their place, I really hate command line tools.

Basically, I patched the registry so that

Double clicking an *.sql file opens that file in notepad
The menu displayed when you right click an *.sql file provides an option to process the file via isql.exe

It is real important that double clicking an *.sql file does NOT cause it to be executed - you could loose all your data that way.

Warning: Do not try to add these features via Windows Explorer Tools / Folder Options... - On windows 2000 it made a real mess that required editing the registry to fix it.

I have implemented this enhancement on Windows 2000 and Windows XP. This is an *.reg file that will make the changes - copy it to a new *.reg file and Merge it.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.sql]
@="sqlfile"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\sqlfile]
"Readme"="Created 11-12-04 rlc"
@="sql querys"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\sqlfile\shell]
@="notepad"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\sqlfile\shell\isql]
@="Firebird command line isql"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\sqlfile\shell\isql\command]
@="cmd.exe /k  \"\"C:\\Program Files\\Firebird\\Firebird_1_5\\bin\\isql.exe\" -i \"%l\"\""

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\sqlfile\shell\notepad]
@="Notepad"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\sqlfile\shell\notepad\command]
@="notepad.exe %1"

Notes

When I started, Windows XP already had the following data ... Windows 2000 did not.
In shell\isql\command, 2 sets of double quotes are required
Created 11-12-04 rlc is just a note indicating that this script was used
No output file is specified because all the ones I've seen are zero bytes long (worthless)

Author: Robert Clemenzi - clemenzi@cpcug.org