Virgo

No, but adding unit into uses can make program try to load them. And I thought, that unhandled exception in dll possible reason for crash.

I thought, that IBX probably tries to load driver dll on unit initialization. And actually, with IBX driver file is probably gds32.dll. But if it is compiler dependent, then it is probably not dll compatibility thing. But I would still check initialization sections of IBX.

What is the version of fbclient.dll? Could it be, that it does not support Windows XP anymore?

Except Windows documentation defines this lpdwHandle as LPDWORD, So THandle would be wrong.

Using variant? function myfunc(const pa_value:string): variant; begin if pa_value = whatever then result := -1 else result := null; end; and then parambyname('myparam').AsVariant := myfunc();

Since SFTP is something completely different of ftp, I would not expect TIdFTP to support it. I have been using SshPascal wrapper around libssh2.dll

In the end it comes down to Delphi limitation, that duplicate fields are not allowed in variant types... Because logical translation with being at the end would be: case Integer of 0: ( hIcon: THandle; hProcess: THandle;); 1: ( hMonitor: THandle; hProcess: THandle;); end; But this duplicate hProcess is not allowed.

But at next invocation of such function foo is already 20. So typed const are like static variables in that sense. Also, in past Delphi versions they were writable by default (Turbo Pascal compatibility).

From documentation " Typed constants, unlike true constants, can hold values of array, record, procedural, and pointer types. Typed constants cannot occur in constant expressions. ". Try MULTIPLIER = NativeInt(1000);

It is really strange, that Delphi 7 book uses Database Desktop to manage Interbase database... Because DBExpress was introduced in Delphi 6 as a replacement for BDE . And even if you wanted to use BDE for Interbase, then even in Delphi 5 (I have no older versions to check, if they had also) there was Database Explorer, that was more useful with SQL databases... And also, specifically for Interbase there where IBX components for database access. But I do not remeber, if there was any specific management interface. Although, there is always Interbase own isql.

Why it happens: probably nobody knows, because nobody probably uses Database Desktop for SQL databases... Maybe someone in Borland would have known, but that company no longer exists. And how to solve it: do not use Database Desktop for SQL Databases... It is only useful for working with Paradox databases and maybe DBase/FoxPro databases...

BDE is not Database Desktop. As I told before, it is program for viewing and modifying Paradox and DBase tables using BDE. It was part of Dephi install in the past versions.

I do not understand the question. Database Desktop works with paradox tables and dbf files. Interbase or IBexpert do not. So they are not replacement for Database Desktop.

I mean replacement program, that does what you want database desktop to do.

Yes. Other way would be to try to write your own replacement for database desktop. Lot of depends, what features of it are you using.