Installing Firebird from a zip kit

Superserver
Installing Classic Server from a zip kit
Simplified setup
Uninstallation

The installation of FB 2.1 is similiar in principle to previous versions but you need to pay attention to the preceding notes about the MS Visual C/C++ v.8 runtimes. Ensure that these libraries are appropriately installed before you begin.

Superserver

That taken care of, the steps are as follows:

unzip the archive into a new directory
change the current directory to $FIREBIRD\bin (here and below, $FIREBIRD refers to the directory where the v.2.1 files are located)
run instreg.exe:
```
    instreg.exe install
          
```
It causes the installation path of the directory above to be written into the registry (HKLM\Software\Firebird Project\Firebird Server\Instances\DefaultInstance)
if you want to register a service, also run instsvc.exe:
```
    instsvc.exe install
          
```
optionally, you may need to run instclient.exe to copy fbclient.dll or a specially-generated clone as gds32.dll to the OS system directory

Installing Classic Server from a zip kit

To install the CS engine, the only difference is the additional switch for instsvc.exe:

    instsvc.exe install -classic

Important

Notice that this means that you may have only one architecture of the engine—either fbserver.exe (Superserver) or fb_inet_server.exe (the parent process for Classic)—installed as a service.

The Control Panel applet is not installed with Classic—deliberately. Don't try to install and use it. The concept of “terminating” a service does not apply to the Classic model.

Simplified setup

If you don't need a registered service, then you may avoid running both instreg.exe and instsvc.exe. In this case you should just unzip the archive into a separate directory and run the server as an application:

    fbserver.exe -a

It should treat its parent directory, i.e., the one above \bin\, as the root directory in this case.

Uninstallation

Warning

You should not delete the client libraries from <SYS> by hand as it has the potential to render the shared library count inaccurate. The instclient.exe utility was conceived primarily so that the client library could be installed and removed from <SYS> while correctly maintaining the shared library count.

To remove Firebird 2.1 without a Windows Uninstaller, proceed as follows:

stop the server
run "instreg.exe remove"
run "instsvc.exe remove"
run "instclient.exe remove fbclient.dll"
run "instclient.exe remove gds32.dll"
delete installation directory