Oracle 11 client for Windows

Software Applications

Product Details

A summary of the specifics of the product.

• Here is the Oracle page introducing the instantclient, with installation instructions at the bottom.
• Here is the page with the downloads of all versions and "packages" of the instantclient for 32-bit Windows.
• We have no information yet as to whether any instantclient packages will work with the next version of Advance or not.

System Requirements

Any 32-bit version of Windows. Oracle 11g is specifically labeled as compatible with Windows 7, where earlier versions were not.

Licensing Information

Oracle is licensed at the server. The Oracle clients may be installed on any number of client machines owned by the college. In fact, the instantclient is freely downloadable by the public.

Licensing Restrictions

None

Usage Restrictions

None

Home Use

The full, traditional Oracle client was too difficult to install to be appropriate for personal computers. The instantclient is light enough to be installed on a home computer. However, connection with a Carleton Oracle database will be possible only when using the restricted VPN.

Lab and Classroom Availability

The Oracle client is not install on lab or classroom computers.

Installation Instructions

College Owned Equipment

To set up an instantclient installation of Oracle 11g that has the same components as the Carleton "basic" installation of Oracle 10g, the first three "packages" listed below are needed:

 

Instant Client Package	Description	Notes
Basic Lite	Smaller version of the Basic, with only English error messages and Unicode, ASCII, and Western European character set support (10.2 only)	OCI OCCI JDBC
SQL*Plus*	Additional libraries and executable for running SQL*Plus with Instant Client	SQL*Plus 10.1 SQL*Plus 10.2
ODBC Supplement*	Additional libraries for enabling ODBC applications with Instant Client (Not all platforms)	ODBC
ODAC*	Includes ODP.NET, Oracle Services for MTS, Oracle Providers for ASP.NET, Oracle Provider for OLE DB, and OO4O with Oracle Instant Client

Optional packages are marked with a *.

For the latest version available today, this mean three .ZIP archives are needed: instantclient-basiclite-win32-11.2.0.1.0.zip, instantclient-odbc-win32-11.2.0.1.0.zip, instantclient-sqlplus-win32-11.2.0.1.0.zip. These files are currently stored in APPS\Windows\Oracle102\instantclient; they will be moved to an Oracle11 directory on the new archive service as soon as it is available. Also in that directory are Oracle Web pages and the whitepaper related to the use and installation of the instant client.

This process is a manual installation / setup that will configure the system to work for Carleton.

Preparation

You will need the following files to complete the manual installation. You can either plan to access these via the APPS server from the client's machine, or copy them to a thumb drive to take with you before visiting the client.

1. Visit APPS\Windows\Oracle102\instantclient
2. Copy the following items to the thumb drive, or a local folder on the client's machine:

• • instantclient-basiclite-win32-11.2.0.1.0.zip
  • instantclient-odbc-win32-11.2.0.1.0.zip
  • instantclient-sqlplus-win32-11.2.0.1.0.zip
  • ldap.ora, sqlnet.ora, tnsnames.ora

(These files will be moved to an Oracle11 directory on the new archive service as soon as it is available. Also in that directory are Oracle Web pages and the whitepaper related to the use and installation of the instant client.)

"Installing" Oracle

1. If there is another version of an Oracle client on this computer, remove it first.
   If there is no uninstaller available in Control Panel > Programs and Features, just delete the following directories and their contents:
       "C:\Program Files\Oracle10"
       "C:\Program Files\Oracle"
   (You may not be able to remove one directory because one oci*.dll file is in use; ignore the problem and it will go away in the next step.)
2. Open the Services Management console (services.msc) and disable any Oracle services.
3. Create the directory: C:\Program Files\Oracle11
4. Unzip the contents of all three .ZIP archives listed above into this directory.
   (Windows Explorer can open a .ZIP archive like a directory and then you can "Extract all files".) If you accidentally extract the parent directories as well simply move all the files out of the three "instantclient_11_xx" directories and into "C:\Program Files\Oracle11".
5. Create the directory:  C:\Program Files\Oracle11\Network\Admin
6. Copy the three Carleton *.ora files listed above into the C:\Program Files\Oracle11\Network\Admin directory.
   These files define how the Oracle client will try to locate database services; their modification is beyond the scope of this article.
7. Create the directory:  C:\Program Files\Oracle11\bin
8. Copy all '.dll' files that you extracted into "C:\Program Files\Oracle11" directory in to "C:\Program Files\Oracle11\bin"

Setting Environment Variables

You need to create two new Windows environment variables and modify another. (You can use the SetX command line utility if you're familiar with it; there's a copy of the utility in that original directory holding the .ZIP archives)

1. Select: Start > Control Panel > System
2. Click on Advanced System Settings (or select the Advanced tab).
3. Click on the Environment Variables button.
4. In the System variables (bottom) list, scroll down to the Path variable, select it, and click Edit.
5. Edit the entry to remove any existing Oracle entries ONLY (they are usually in front).
   Do NOT delete the entire entry.
6. Add the following to the start of the Path variable (copy and paste):
   C:\Progra~1\Oracle11\bin;C:\Progra~1\Oracle11;
7. Click OK.

8. Add the following two new system variables using the New button at the bottom of the screen (under System variables):

   TNS_ADMIN	C:\Progra~1\Oracle11\Network\Admin
   ORACLE_HOME	C:\Progra~1\Oracle11

9. Click OK.

Notes

This instantclient lacks two important pieces that were present and used with the traditional Oracle client. SQL*Plus Worksheet was used by "a handful of people" at Carleton, but is becoming obsolete. (I believe that Microsoft Access or Excel, along with the advance ODBC data source, can replace it.) And TNSPING was used by all of us to demonstrate that an Oracle client installation worked and that Oracle was correctly installed. Without TNSPING, it becomes more difficult to prove that the instantclient is correctly installed and working: Assuming that the Advance client has also been installed, from an elevated command prompt, run the SQLPlus program using these command line parameters:
     sqlplus.exe username/password@advance
where username is your Oracle (not Advance, not Windows) login and password is your Oracle password. If this succeeds, SQLPlus displays its SQL> prompt, at which you can enter this query to retrieve one record:
     select * from entity where rownum = 1;
Retrieving one record demonstrates that the instantclient is installed correctly and locating Carleton data to which you have read access.

There is current no Link to protected information for ITS instructions.

Personal Machines

The installation would be the same on a personal computer. Remember that a restricted VPN connection would be required to access Carleton data.

Who To Call

BSR Advance CS and its companion applications are supported by Central Records staff Carla Thomas, Tony Pierre, and Denise Flicek. Within ITS, Oracle database systems administration is done by Richard Goerwitz, who can answer many Oracle questions (like how do the three *.ora files work). Sande Nissen in ITS will package any Oracle 11g client installations that are needed, for distribution through the KBOX user portal.

Questions, Tips and Tricks

Technical Troubleshooting

In the SQLPlus verification test described above, a number of common errors can be diagnosed. If the program sqlplus.exe cannot be found (Windows looks on the search PATH that you modified), then the instantclient installation, with its reboot, was not correct. If the program SQLPlus starts, it should display a header with its version number; if the version number is not 11.something, then an old version of Oracle is interfering with the new Oracle 11g instantclient installation. When SQLPlus starts, if it cannot resolve the command line database name of @advance, then either Advance is not installed, or the three Carleton *.ora files were not copied to the Oracle directory, or the TNS_ADMIN environment variable does not point to the directory where the *.ora files are stored. If SQLPlus starts but immediately displays an error message about login or access denied, then the username/password combination on the command line may be incorrect. If any error message is displayed, be sure to copy it exactly when you create a WebHelpDesk ticket to get help with this problem.

Miscellaneous Information

Disclaimer: This information was correct as of when it was created based on Sande's and Russ' best knowledge. If this page has been edited by anyone else, Sande and Russ are not responsible for the accuracy of the information.