InterBase and Windows 10 Anniversary Update

Author: Steve A416

NOTE: This problem goes away, if you install InterBase XE7 Update 7 or any build of InterBase 2017.

We are getting reports from customers who are unable to connect to InterBase after applying the Windows 10 Anniversary Update. The error could be:

"Cannot attach to password database"

or

I/O error for file "C:\ProgramData\Application Data\Embarcadero\InterBase\gds_db\admin.ib"
Error while trying to open file
The system cannot find the file specified."

Since the release of InterBase XE3, the location of the password database, admin.ib has been determined by the IBCONFIG setting, APPDATA_DIRECTORY. The default value for this is

APPDATA_DIRECTORY         "C:\ProgramData\Application Data\Embarcadero\InterBase\<instance name>"

It turns out that Application Data is not a real directory but is what is known as a junction point that just points back to c:\programdata. When the Windows 10 update is run, this junction point is deleted. The way around the problem is to do the following:

1. Run Notepad or your favourite text editor as Administrator.
2. Open IBCONFIG. This is located in the InterBase installation directory
3. Locate the APPDATA_DIRECTORY setting.
4. Change this to APPDATA_DIRECTORY         “C:\ProgramData\Embarcadero\InterBase\<instance name>”
5. Save the file and restart InterBase.