Firebird Database Server 1.5 Release Candidate 2 ================================================ This document is a guide to installing this package of Firebird 1.5 on the Win32 platform. These notes refer to the installation package itself, rather than Firebird 1.5 in general. Contents -------- o Before installation o Two Packages o Uninstallation o Other Notes o Installation from a batch file Before installation ------------------- One of the design goals of Firebird 1.5 is to allow different versions of Firebird (or InterBase) to run simultaneously. Much work has been done on this installation script to support this aim, but that work is NOT yet complete. There are still some known installation problems surrounding the issue of co-existence: o Uninstalling Firebird 1.0 or 1.0.2 after installing this package will break this installation by removing some registry keys. The next maintenance release of Firebird 1.0 will correct this. o Neither the Firebird 1.0 nor 1.0.2 installers handle shared library counts correctly. This will have unpredictable results when uninstalling one of these versions. For instance, gds32.dll may or may not exist if one of these earlier versions is uninstalled after installing this package. o The server will not start if an existing Firebird or InterBase server is listening on the default port 3050. A future version of this installation script will likely detect this and prompt for a different port during the install. Until then it is necessary to edit the firebird.conf file manually. To save yourself confusion while testing this release candidate it is recommended that you UNINSTALL all previous versions of Firebird 1.0, Firebird 1.5 or InterBase before installing this package. Two Packages ------------ A subsidiary design goal is to allow developers to easily switch between the Super Server and Classic Architectures. Each architecture is encapsulated in a single binary. All that is required at a technical level is to choose which version of the server to execute. Combining the two server architectures in a single installation package is doable, at the expense of bringing complexity to the installation process. o A custom dialogue screen is required to ask the user to choose the desired architecture. This is supported by the installation builder but is not an 'out of the box' option. o Uninstallation needs to check whether the running architecture has changed from the one originally installed. These issues are solvable but that takes time. While waiting for the SuperInstaller to come along the existing installation script has been enhanced to ensure that repeated installation and uninstallation of each package works flawlessly. Switching between packages should require no more effort than uninstalling one and installing the other. Uninstallation -------------- This package should be uninstalled via the Control Panel. Alternatively it can be uninstalled by running unins000.exe from the installation directory. Other Notes ----------- Firebird requires WinSock2. All Win32 platforms should have this, except for Win95. A test for the Winsock2 library is made during install. If it is not found the install will fail. You can visit this link: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q177719 to find out how to go about upgrading. Installation from a batch file ------------------------------ The setup program can be run from a batch file. This is useful if you wish to install the client across a network. The following parameters may be passed: /SP- Disables the 'This will install... Do you wish to continue?' prompt at the beginning of Setup. /SILENT, /VERYSILENT Instructs Setup to be silent or very silent. When Setup is silent the wizard and the background window are not displayed but the installation progress window is. When a setup is very silent this installation progress window is not displayed. Everything else is normal so for example error messages during installation are displayed and the startup prompt is (if you haven't disabled it with the '/SP-' command line option explained above) If a restart is necessary and the '/NORESTART' command isn't used (see below) and Setup is silent, it will display a Reboot now? messagebox. If it's very silent it will reboot without asking. /NORESTART Instructs Setup not to reboot even if it's necessary. /DIR="x:\dirname" Overrides the default directory name displayed on the Select Destination Directory wizard page. A fully qualified pathname must be specified. If the [Setup] section directive DisableDirPage was set to yes, this command line parameter is ignored. /GROUP="folder name" Overrides the default folder name displayed on the Select Start Menu Folder wizard page. If the [Setup] section directive DisableProgramGroupPage was set to yes, this command line parameter is ignored. /NOICONS Instructs Setup to initially disable the Don't create any icons check box on the Select Start Menu Folder wizard page. /COMPONENTS="comma separated list of component names" Choose from - ServerComponent, DevAdminComponent and ClientComponent Overrides the default components settings. Using this command line parameter causes Setup to automatically select a custom type. A full install requires combining components.