Getting The Right Firebird Client Library

ODBC/JDBC Driver for Firebird Client ApplicationsFirebird ODBC Configuration

Getting the Right Firebird Client Library

All Firebird RDBMS kits contain at least one version of the Firebird client library.If there is only one, then it will have the same “bitness” as the server installation kit itself.

Important

Make sure you get the fbclient library that has the same major version number as the server it is going to connect with.

On a 32-bit Windows installation, fbclient.dll is in Firebird’s bin folder in Firebird versions lower than version 3.0.For version 3.0 and above, it is in Firebird’s root folder, e.g. C:\Program Files (x86)\Firebird\Firebird\Firebird_3_0, or wherever Firebird was installed.
On a 64-bit Windows installation, the version of fbclient.dll in Firebird’s bin folder (or Firebird’s root folder for version 3.0 and higher) is the 64-bit one.In some builds, the 32-bit client is located in a folder, named either WOW64 or system32, that is beneath Firebird’s root.

If your ODBC DSN setup is going to need the 32-bit fbclient.dll and it is not there, you will need to download the 32-bit Windows .zip kit from the main Firebird download page, extract the 32-bit client from it and place it in the same folder as your application.An alternative is to download the 32-bit installer instead and perform a client-only install, configuring the installer to place it where you want it to be.
The POSIX server kits always come with only the matching libfbclient.so.You will need to extract it from an .i686 kit if your POSIX client application is 32-bit.

Have the client library in its proper place before installing the driver and configuring the DSN.

Note	Compatibility of the Driver with Firebird Versions The most current version of the ODBC/JDBC driver is expected to be compatible with any supported version of Firebird.

Installing the Driver on Windows

If you are doing a first-time install of the driver, or if you have uninstalled an older version, it is recommended that you use the executable installer.These instructions will assume that you are installing the 32-bit driver, but the procedure is the same for installing the 64-bit one.Under the hood, the 32-bit driver library will be installed into \windows\sysWOW64 on a 64-bit Windows.Any other install will place the driver in windows\system32.

Download or move the executable installer kit to the desktop.Right-click on it and select menu:Run as Administrator[].

Figure 1. ODBC driver installer on the desktop

Click your way through the screens until you reach the one in which you configure your preferences for the installation:

Figure 2. ODBC driver installer screens

If you want or need to, you can have the driver installed in some other location than the one offered by the installer as the default.Use the btn:[Browse] button to find the location where you want to have the driver installed.

Note	The installer will create the `\Firebird_ODBC` subfolder if it does not exist already.

Lastly, the installer will display the configuration you have chosen.If you happy with it, just click btn:[Install] and it is done.

Figure 3. ODBC driver installer final screen

Note

You might observe here that, on our system, we keep our own dedicated “Programs64” and “Programs32” folders under C:\Windows.That is simply preference as to how we organise our server and monitor the volume of stuff installed by Windows updates into its own program folders.

The .chm and .html documents noted on that screen are older evolutions of this document that are still built in with the kits at the point of this writing.