Installation on NT4 revisited

After the flurry of activity a few weeks ago and the much-appreciated help I
started investigating what versions of ODBC (etc.) DLLs would work with NT4, in
the hope that I could standardise on a particular set of files on all NT4
machines. I fairly rapidly found that this was a bit of a minefield and started
missing the capability I have on Linux to roll back changes to a known point, so
undertook a major digression setting up NT4 running in a guest Qemu session. To
cut a long story short, the PostgreSQL ODBC drivers didn't work in that
environment, so I set up another clean copy of NT on a sacrificial machine...
and found things still didn't work :-(

Unless otherwise stated I'm running NT4W SP6a, IE 4.01 SP1 and NT hotfixes as
per Q299444. As a further prerequisite I've installed the PostgreSQL ODBC
drivers 7.02.0001 then de-installed them, this leaves a copy of msiexec.exe on
the system. I'm calling this the baseline; I have no reason to believe that this
configuration is broken, but it does not have the same usage history as most
live or development systems around here.

Current PostgreSQL ODBC is assumed to be v8.02.0100 with update DLLs downloaded
today (17th October) from
http://www.geocities.jp/inocchichichi/psqlodbc/index.html.

If I take the baseline system and install Postgres ODBC 8.02.0100 plus the
update DLLs from mid September, I get a "General SQL Error" with a BDE error
code of 13059 if I try to open a database using the BDE administrator. Updated
to the latest DLLs I get "General SQL Error. Missing server name, port or
database name in call to CC_connect" with "BDE Error: 13059" and "Server error:
201" (apologies for any transcription errors there, I'm having to do it by
hand). Adding the directory containing the Postgres ODBC DLLs etc. to the path
has no effect, neither does copying the DLLs to System32. I get the same trying
to connect to either a v7 or v8 server, changing the protocol as appropriate but
leaving all other ODBC settings at the default.

Applying Dependency Walker indicates missing delayed-load secur32.dll and
xolehlp.dll. Since neither of these is present on working systems I'm inclined
to regard them as non-crucial, I think we've looked at that one already.

If I revert to the baseline system as described above and install Postgres ODBC
7.02.0001 everything works fine- I can open a database from the v7 server using
the BDE Administrator applet from the control panel and my own programs (Delphi
using the BDE) work as far as I have tested.

Removing the datasource and rebooting to make sure no DLLs are locked in memory
I install 8.02.0100 plus the latest update DLLs without removing v7. If I try to
open a database using the BDE administrator it progresses beyond user name and
password entry without any displayed error and shows me the database properties
(as understood by the BDE), however if I subsequently fire up my own app I get a
"General SQL Error. Missing server name, port or database name in call to
CC_connect" when it actually tries to connect to a table. Error is the same if I
try to connect to a v7 or v8 server, I can't get it to create a \mylog or
\commlog.

I'll continue tinkering with this, my own feeling is that I've probably got a
strange mix of v7 and v8 DLLs to resolve. However any suggestions would be much
appreciated :-)

--
Mark Morgan Lloyd
markMLl .AT. telemetry.co .DOT. uk

[Opinions above are the author's, not those of his employers or colleagues]