InterBase on Windows Vista

Here are a few tips if you want to run InterBase on Windows Vista. Last InterBase release was made before Windows Vista so there are a few issues that you must be aware of.

License Management

Does not work as expected at all times. The backward compatibility feature called Virtualization or Redirection in Windows Vista can break it if you start the InterBase server or License Manager as a standard user. You risk getting copies of borland.lic, regXXX.txt, etc, in several folders and that makes things complicated.

Workaround: Check “Run this program as Administrator” on shortcuts to InterBase Server Manager and License Manager. Make sure you do not have files in c:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\VirtualStore\Program Files\Borland\InterBase\license. If you have, delete all files in licenses and place new copy of your regXXX.txt file to start over.

Connect to Local Server

Due to new process isolation in Windows Vista and the fact services starts in different session/desktop than users connecting to InterBase as Local Server in IBConsole and from your applications will not work.

Workaround: Use Remote Server and TCP/IP protocol instead of Local Server. Connect to 127.0.0.1 or localhost. For you connection string in other applications use “127.0.0.1:” infront of the path to your database file.

Windows Vista User Account Control (UAC)

InterBase Server Manager starts as an ordinary user even if you are an administrator. Symptoms of this is that you get access denied if you try to register InterBase to run as a service.

Workaround: Check “Run this program as Administrator” on shortcuts to InterBase Server Manager. Always check run InterBase server as a Service.

IBConsole saves settings in IBConsole.xml in program files and if you start it as an standard user it does not have write access to this folder so you will get a local copy in c:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\VirtualStore\Program Files\Borland\InterBase instead. This can be confusing because if you make changes to the on in Program Files as administrator, nothing will happened for users with a local copy.

Workaround: Change ACL to allow ordinary users to update it or start IBConsole or check “Run this program as Administrator” on shortcut.