Hello,
let me give you some quick thoughts for trouble checking:
1. Make sure to use the 'dbmcli' from the database server and not remotely.
2. Since 7.8, always access MaxDB on Windows with 'Administrator' privilege from the command line.
3. Execute 'xinstinfo NWD' and navigate to the resulting 'InstallationPath' and from there to the 'pgm' subdirectory. In your example above you were using the dbmcli from the 'client-installation' directory.
4. Try a 'dbmcli db_state'
5. If the state is 'unknown', stop it with 'dbmcli db_offline'
6. Try to start the database to 'admin' only.
Thorsten