I have a customer that can't install my Intraweb/ElevateDB app as a
service on Windows 2003 server. On attempting, an EDatabaseError
exception occurs: "Cannot perform this operation when the engine has
been started.". Any ideas as to what might be going on here? I have no
problems here on XP or Vista running it as a service.

Here's the MadExcept report:

Main ($39c):
00678ef4 +90 MyWebService.exe DB
DatabaseError
0068e7a8 +10 MyWebService.exe edbcomps                 2436 +1
TEDBEngineInstance.CheckInactive
0068e95a +16 MyWebService.exe edbcomps                 2520 +3
TEDBEngineInstance.SetConfigPath
0068f5e1 +05 MyWebService.exe edbcomps                 3171 +0
TEDBEngine.SetConfigPath
007f6a28 +08 MyWebService.exe ServerController           68 +0
TIWServerController.IWServerControllerBaseCreate
0042ee2f +2b MyWebService.exe Classes
TDataModule.DoCreate
0042ecdc +08 MyWebService.exe Classes
TDataModule.AfterConstruction
0052749f +1f MyWebService.exe IWServerControllerBase
TIWServerControllerBase.AfterConstruction
00404a09 +1d MyWebService.exe System                    208 +0
@AfterConstruction
0052787d +b1 MyWebService.exe IWServerControllerBase
TIWServerControllerBase.Create
005434b1 +61 MyWebService.exe IWInit
AppModeInit
0054904f +33 MyWebService.exe IWInitService                    IWRun
0083e54c +10 MyWebService.exe MyWebService   45 +1 initialization

Michael,

<< I have a customer that can't install my Intraweb/ElevateDB app as a
service on Windows 2003 server. On attempting, an EDatabaseError exception
occurs: "Cannot perform this operation when the engine has been started.".
Any ideas as to what might be going on here? I have no problems here on XP
or Vista running it as a service. >>

You can't configure the engine from multiple threads, especially after one
of the threads has caused the engine to become active.  You must configure
the engine *before* it has been started by one of the threads.  The engine
instance is common to the entire process, not each thread.

--
Tim Young
Elevate Software
www.elevatesoft.com