Killing the Ghost of the BDE

Question

In my Delphi7 app, I can connect to the database when logged in as Administrator ("Dave"), but not when logged in as a standard or limited user ("Paris"). Happens on XP Home & Vista Business Ultimate 64. I use an alias for the db. Database is Firebird, middle-ware is IBO 4.7.

I posted this in another thread, but know I have a lot more info, & it seems that the BDE is the problem. Apparently the DB.Pas is linked in. I can see it in the project.map file, & the exe reads the Registry to get the BDE alias.

I've removed all the BDE-related sources & dcu files, I've searched the project exhaustively for an DB component & it comes up clean.

Has anybody been there?

Answer 1

Assuming you're not building with packages - remove db.pas and db.dcu from the disk (rename them to db!.pas and db!.dcu, for example) and rebuild. Compiler should stop where the db is referenced from.

Answer 2

I solved it with your help. First gabr recommended I remove the .dcus. I had, but found a few, including db.dcu. Killed it. Now the compile stopped at uses IB.dcu (Borlands interface to Interbase). Killed it, & got a compile. Grepped for DB in the .map - not present. Still wouldn't work as Paris, so I found a Jason comment in the sources that revealed that the AliasName property of TConnection was for the BDE Alias, not the FireBird Alias, so I set the property to blank.

Ran the exe under Paris & it worked!.

Now, I need to tell you I had taken this home for the weekend, hoping for some focus. When it worked I yelled BLOODY BONZER! at the top of my voice - & all three cats dove off & hid.

"IB," - 3 chars in 700 thousand lines of code!

So if anyone is haunted by this ghost, grep for IB!

Thanks guys (gals?) - how do I credit you with the best answer?

Thanks, Dave.