Yes, it seems to be activated. From WPadmin, I can see Forums, All Forums and New Forums and I can create a new one. No Topics and Replies buttons though.
The forums base for bbPress is forums
The single slug is forums
It does say there may be a conflict with buddy press with these slugs, but the buddypress forum option is turned off.
Unfortunately I don’t have access to php MyAdmin. I had the site owner check the database and he says he doesn’t see the above tables or bb-config.php in in the WP root.
In BuddyPress the forums page is associated with forums.